Author: XiaoYu Wu (University of Waterloo) - Hydrogen is proposed as a clean fuel for heavy-duty vehicles, as using hydrogen to power these vehicles leads to zero carbon emissions at the tail pipes. Yet building the supporting infrastructure, e.g., hydrogen production, storage and refueling can be expensive. Therefore, it is important to estimate the associated costs, i.e., the levelized cost of carbon abatement (LCCA) in decarbonizing heavy-duty trucks using low-carbon hydrogen. The LCCA depends on the choices of techno-economic parameters, such as costs and efficiency of different components, which could create large uncertainty in the results. In this study, we conducted an LCCA study using Monte Carlo-based simulations to study how different variables such as renewable energy availability, electricity costs, equipment costs and carbon intensities can impact the LCCAs. The integration of Ontario electrical grid and renewables for hydrogen production was used as a case study. Results show that in high renewable penetration scenario (i.e., 90.7% electricity from renewables), the LCCAs are between 148 and 674 CAD per tonne CO2 abated with 90% probability, while reducing renewable penetration can lower the LCCAs thanks to the low-carbon electricity available at a low price. Moreover, sensitivity analysis results show that the capital cost of fuel cell electric trucks impacts the LCCA values significantly, more than the electricity costs and electrolyzer costs.
