Hydrogen mobility from wind energy - A life cycle assessment focusing on the fuel supply

In the current debates on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the mobility sector, hydrogen produced via water electrolysis from renewable electricity is commonly regarded to be a sustainable energy carrier with large potential for decarbonisation of the mobility sector. Directly produced at the refueling stations site, hydrogen greenhouse gas emissions are presently defined to be zero in e.g. the Directives of the European Union since emissions arising from the facilities construction are defined to be negligible. In order to check the validity of this assumption with respect to the latest technical developments in hydrogen supply, the present article aims to report the environmental performance of hydrogen being produced and compressed for mobility purposes. To this end, a state-of-the-art hydrogen refueling station (HRS) with an on-site alkaline electrolyser is assessed, which was built and operated in Berlin. Assuming electricity supply from wind energy generation, a life cycle assessment for the complete value chain was carried out where primary data for the build-up of electrolyser and HRS were obtained during decommissioning of the station. The results show that the construction of HRS and on-site electrolyser requires higher material and energy expenditures compared to previous investigations on similar but technically less advanced systems. These expenditures generate a significant footprint in the specific e.g. greenhouse gas emissions if the electrolyser is operated at a reduced load factor as it may be foreseen for grid stabilisation purposes. To ensure a strong reduction of emissions compared to conventional fuels, this load factor should be sufficiently high and should be defined to not fall under a certain threshold in upcoming directives. Besides, excessive use of supplies should be avoided and the refueling station should be operated with renewable electricity to the largest extent. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.