A hydrogen refuelling stations infrastructure deployment for cities supported on fuel cell taxi roll-out

A shift towards lower-carbon fuels is mandatory to achieve the decarbonisation of the transport sector, which is responsible of 14% of world greenhouse gas emissions. Despite to the fact that fuel cell electric vehicles are zero tail-pipe emissions vehicles, their use is presently residual. A massive integration of fuel cell vehicles faces a "chicken-egg dilemma": vehicles need a proper refuelling infrastructure to provide a safe and continuous hydrogen supply, but a viable deployment of the refuelling infrastructure needs the support of an initial market of vehicles. In this article, we design a feasible strategy for overcoming the dilemma, using the local taxi fleet as a stable market of hydrogen consumers to start up a retail hydrogen supply infrastructure in high populated cities. The design is based on three objectives: ensuring hydrogen supply, having throughout the city a nearby alternative for refuelling and maximizing the infrastructure utilisation rate. The strategy applied to the city of Madrid show that $415 million of public funds allocated along 25 years would provide in six years a network of 112 hydrogen refuelling stations, able to supply the hydrogen needs of 15,000 new fuel cell electric taxis what would cut the emissions of 300 kt CO2 yearly. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.