Selection of Renewable Hydrogen Production Facility under GFO 17-602
On June 13, 2018, the Energy Commission approved an award for a 100% renewable hydrogen production
facility under GFO 17-602. The selected facility will be developed by Stratos Fuel, the developer of the
hydrogen fueling station in Ontario.
While the solicitation required a minimum production capacity of 1 ton
(1,000 kilograms) per day intended primarily for use at light-duty FCEV fueling stations, the awarded funds
will be utilized to add 2 tons/day production capacity to a 3 ton/day facility already under development. The
full project is expected to be developed in three phases:
• Phase 1: Development of a 5,000 kg/day electrolyzer-based hydrogen production facility in
Moreno Valley. The electrolyzers will use grid-tied 100% renewable electricity for the production
of hydrogen fuel that will be supplied to in-state hydrogen refueling stations. Current California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review and Energy Commission grant funds include this phase.
• Phase 2: Future planned expansion of Phase 1 with an additional 10,000 kg/day of
electrolyzer capacity on an adjacent parcel. Current California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) review includes this phase, but Energy Commission grant funds do not.
• Phase 3: Long-term planned expansion to include a 15-ton/day biogas steam-methane
reformation system and a 20-ton liquefaction plant on an adjacent parcel. Current
CEQA review includes this phase, but Energy Commission grant funds do not.
Selection of a Hydrogen-Powered Freight Infrastructure Project under GFO 17-603
On April 5, 2018, the Energy Commission announced the recommendation of award for three projects in
its Advanced Freight Infrastructure solicitation. One of the selected projects was for the development of a
hydrogen fueling facility at the Port of Long Beach. The project is a collaborative effort between Shell (doing
business as Equilon Enterprise, LLC), Toyota, and FuelCell Energy.
The refueling facility will be supplied by an
on-site tri-generation facility with the capability to produce hydrogen for transportation fueling, electricity
for on-site facility use, and thermal energy for other local heating uses. These on-site resources are produced
via a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell operating on directed bio-waste gas produced by agricultural processes
in California’s Central Valley. The fueling infrastructure in this project will be used to fuel trucks provided by
Toyota (the previously-announced Project Portal Class 8 freight hauling truck), smaller FCEV trucks in drayage
service, and light-duty Mirai FCEVs as they are delivered via cargo ship and then transported to dealerships
throughout California. In total,
the facility will be developed to provide fueling capacity of 1,270 kilograms
per day, 1,000 of which is intended for the heavy-duty truck pilot and demonstration. . . .
CARB Analysis of DMV Registrations and Auto Manufacturer Survey
Reponses
Based on the DMV registration data,
as of April 4, 2018, there were 4,411 FCEVs actively registered in the
state of California. The auto manufacturer members of the CaFCP have recently initiated an effort to provide
updated public deployment estimates based on their sales data, and to publish these estimates through
the Partnership website [1]. DMV registration data are in agreement with this industry estimate, which was
reported to be 4,421 through March 2018. Panel A of Figure 3 provides the county-based distribution of the
currently registered vehicles.
The majority are registered in Los Angeles (35%) and Orange Counties (24%),
with much of the remainder registered to Santa Clara (14%), Alameda (5%), Contra Costa (3%), Sacramento
(3%), and San Mateo (2%) counties. It should be noted that there are some registrations reported in counties
with no Open-Retail hydrogen stations within the county or in nearby counties. While the numbers are small,
and CARB does not have a method to verify their source, it is likely these registration records may fall in one
of two categories:
• Erroneous data collection and/or entry in the DMV registration database, or
• FCEV deployments that depend on private and/or research-based
fueling facilities near the registered location. . . .
Current Open and Funded Stations
Compared to the 2017 Annual Evaluation, there have been fewer changes in the set of open and funded
hydrogen fueling stations over the past year. The most impactful changes have been2
:
• The addition of the Beverly Hills, Mission Hills, Redwood City, and Studio City stations to
the hydrogen fueling network through a second round of awards under GFO 15-605
• Three stations that encountered completion difficulties (North Hollywood, Rohnert Park,
and Orange) are not included in this analysis; the removal of these stations from this analysis
results in reduced assessment coverage in the respective nearby neighborhoods.
In addition to these changes, the timing of individual stations’ projected opening dates have been updated,
the Chino station has been added back into projected station counts, and
the capacities of the stations
awarded to FirstElement Fuel in GFO 15-605 have been updated to 500 kg/day. . . .Understanding FCEV First Adopters’ Purchase Decisions
Beyond characterizing FCEV adopters themselves, it is also important to understand the motivations and
decision-making process that led them to the choice to own or lease an FCEV. Figure 21 and Figure 22
show adopters’ level of interest in FCEVs at the time they were shopping for their vehicle and the other
vehicle technologies they considered alongside FCEVs. According to these results,
there does appear to be
significant cross-shopping between FCEVs and the other zero- and low-emission technologies available to
consumers, even when consumers are also considering conventional gasoline vehicles. BEVs are the most common
alternative considered. In addition, FCEV adopters tend to have at least some prior knowledge
and interest developed in the technology before making their purchase decision, with a significant portion
entering the purchase decision with a single vehicle in mind. Still, approximately 15% of FCEV adopters were
not even aware of the technology before they began shopping for a new vehicle.
FCEV adopters may be motivated by a variety of factors when making the decision to purchase their vehicle.
Figure 23 shows the relative importance of several factors investigated through the CVRP survey.
The most
influential factor appears to remain the potential to reduce environmental impacts, providing further evidence
that FCEV adopters are motivated by environmental concerns. Access to HOV lanes (a non-monetary
incentive) was the second-most influential factor. This highlights the need for complementary policies to
help build this new consumer market and may be an indicator of the importance of considering commute
and other travel routes when assessing the need for new station locations in CHIT. Financial factors ranked
approximately equivalently to a desire for new technology and energy independence. However, when asked
9 Respondents were asked to identify up to two vehicle technologies to identify the single most influential
factor in their purchase decision, reduced environmental impacts was the most commonly-selected option but
financial considerations were the second-most influential followed by HOV lane access, as shown in Figure 24.
The CVRP survey also explores the correlation between station network development and FCEV purchase
decisions. Figure 25 shows the relative importance of various categorized station locations (near home, along
their commute, on the way to other frequent destinations, and on the way to or near vacation destinations)
to FCEV adopters’ purchase decisions. As previously reported,
the availability of fueling stations near home
appears to be the most strongly influential network-based consideration for purchase decisions, with fueling
along commute routes having slightly less influence. The need for stations along frequent daily routes (such as
on the way to errands or other daily and weekly-visited destinations) and long-distance or travel destinations
continues to appear to be low-priority for FCEV adopters. These observations are in agreement with
fundamental assumptions of CHIT’s coverage and coverage gap calculations. . . .
Comparison of Hydrogen Fueling to Gasoline Fueling Experience
The ultimate goal of the hydrogen fueling network development in California is to provide a fueling experience
that provides FCEV drivers the same utility for their vehicles as gasoline drivers experience with theirs. One
potential metric for gauging the hydrogen fueling network’s approach to parity with gasoline is a comparison
of the number of hydrogen fueling stations that drivers may routinely rely on for their travels and the number
of gasoline stations they had previously relied on. Figure 30 shows FCEV adopters’ prior experience with
gasoline station fueling and their current experience with hydrogen. Unsurprisingly, the data make it clear that
significant hydrogen fueling station network development remains. A disproportionate amount (~42%) of FCEV
drivers rely on a single station for their daily travels (compared to ~12% of prior reported gasoline experience).
FCEV drivers’ prior experience with the gasoline network tended towards regularly relying on two to four
fueling stations, with a significant number of respondents having previously relied on up to ten stations. FCEV
drivers do not yet rely on more than three stations to any appreciable degree, with the vast majority relying on
only one or two stations. This highlights the need to continue developing the station network with the goal of
providing service and convenience increasingly similar to the gasoline fueling network. . . .
.
.
. 
.