A method to develop a hydrogen fueling infrastructure network: an Italian case study

The transport system is today again heavily dependent on fossil fuels and is the main cause of air pollution in cities contributing largely to climate change and other problems that arise from increased greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) levels in the atmosphere [1-4]. The use of vehicles powered by hydrogen (in whole or in part) can be a viable alternative in order to reduce the negative impacts on traffic and environment caused by transport. The introduction of the hydrogen technology on the vehicles requires however a plan for fueling infrastructures on the road. New EU rules have been adopted today to ensure the build-up of alternative refueling points across Europe with common standards for their design and use. A strategy for the transport sector to gradually replace oil with alternative fuels and build up the necessary infrastructure could bring savings on the oil import bill of EUR 4.2 billion per year in 2020, increasing to EUR 9.3 billion per year in 2030, and another EUR 1 billion per year from dampening of price hikes [5]. In this paper a methodology to establish the service area location and the charging stations number for hydrogen vehicles (FCEVs or FCHEVs) in a road network is proposed. A two levels model is defined to individuate the location of the service areas (first level) and the number of charging stations for each service area (second level). Identified the demand (the flow of hydrogen vehicles) and the supply (the road network where will be located the service areas), the proposed procedure can be applied to size a fueling network infrastructures. The paper deals with the intersection of three main topics: the vehicle technology (engine, fuel cell, hydrogen tank and eventually battery pack features), the fueling station characteristics and the vehicle flow. After verifying the model and the solution procedure on a test road network, the methodology is applied in a high dimension case, considering the Italian highway network.