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Optimal placement and operation of hydrogen fueling stations in Metro Vancouver and Victoria

University of British Columbia

Nowadays, road transportation is responsible for a substantial and growing share of GHG emissions. Canada is ranked among the top 10 worst offenders in terms of GHG emissions. Specifically, in the Province of British Columbia (BC), 25% of GHG is from the road transportation sector. BC is a test bed for fuel cell products for transportation and possesses outstanding potential for hydrogen production. Recently, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have attracted more customers, therefore an estimation of the total hydrogen demand is required to satisfy the hydrogen demand for fuel cell vehicles. Hydrogen has more advantages than the existing fuels because it is high-quality carbon-free energy carrier with lower or zero GHG emissions. In this study, a simulation analysis in Metro Vancouver and Victoria which are located in the South West corner of BC is conducted to determine the appropriate arrangements of hydrogen stations in various time horizons. Also, the essential stages of building new stations during demand growth are discussed. To this aim, after reviewing the literature on optimisation and simulation methods, a new model to evaluate the demand of hydrogen in each municipality in Metro Vancouver and Victoria is proposed. This model classifies the parameters that are crucial in ranking potential locations and finds daily hydrogen demand. Furthermore, various scenarios are identified to find the best arrangement for hydrogen fueling infrastructure with the lowest average queue length and average waiting time for different time periods. It is shown that the total number of hydrogen stations that are essential to be built in the 30-year time horizon to cover the demand of all fuel cell vehicles in Metro Vancouver and Victoria is 52. 12 stations in each of Surrey and Vancouver; 4 in Burnaby; 3 in each of Richmond, Coquitlam, Langley, and Victoria; and 2 stations in each of North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Delta, Maple Ridge, and University of British Columbia (UBC).

Text

2020-10-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/69855

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/