Abstract
California is moving toward developing a full renewable clean hydrogen system with its ARCHES hydrogen partnership approved for funding by the Biden Administration and the US Department of Energy’s hydrogen hubs program. The transition in California will include adopting hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) in the light-duty and heavy-duty vehicle markets, however, there are major uncertainties in how fast these markets can develop. The roll-out of FCEVs will affect how fast hydrogen supply and distribution systems for these markets will need to be built. Aligning supply, station construction, and FCEV purchases remains an on-going “chicken-or-egg” challenge. The cost of investments per-unit cost of hydrogen produced and reaching consumers are major concerns. This report explores the build-out of a hydrogen fuel distribution system including uptake of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles. It includes an analysis of a base case and high case scenarios covering costs of building and operating a hydrogen vehicle and fuel system as well as an estimate of workforce impacts. The base case scenario assumes 125,000 vehicles by 2030, and the high case scenario assumes 250,000 vehicles by 2030. Vehicle and station investment costs associated with the base Case reach anywhere from $4 to 12 billion USD by 2030 and increase by a factor of eight by 2045. Costs per kilogram (kg) of hydrogen, including fuel transmission to stations and station costs delivered to vehicles, could be in the range of $4 to 8 per kg. This becomes $6 to 10/kg as a final delivered cost, if production of hydrogen were to cost $2/kg. Workforce impacts in the base case include 600 to 2,200 jobs created by 2030, rising rapidly thereafter.
