Economic analysis of standalone wind-powered hydrogen refueling stations for road transport at selected sites in Sweden

The road transport sector of Sweden depends heavily on fossil fuels imported from neighboring countries. Renewable hydrogen fuel produced by using local wind electricity may be used as possible alternative fuel to reduce the gasoline fuel usage in the road transport sector of the country. By replacing the gasoline fuel with indigenous renewable hydrogen fuel in road transport sector, enormous savings of revenue and environment could be achieved. In this paper, we performed an economic analysis of standalone wind powered hydrogen refueling stations at three selected sites in Sweden. This analysis is done by using HOMER. Results specify that at selected sites renewable hydrogen fuel can be produced around the year to successfully refuel 200 vehicles on daily basis. The levelized cost of hydrogen (COH) achieved by refueling stations having V112 wind turbine ranged from 5.18 to 7.25 US$/kgH(2), whereas it ranged from 6.52 to 9.62 US$/kgH(2) for stations having V82 wind turbines. Influence of wind speed variation on the cost of hydrogen (COH) was also checked and 17%-19% reduction in hydrogen cost was achieved when wind speed was increased from 4.5 to 5 m/s. From the obtained results it can be concluded that hydrogen fuel utilization in transport sector can provide the economical and environmental benefits in Sweden. However, to implement this option on major scale in the country is a big challenge itself. Copyright (C) 2015, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.