A portfolio of powertrains for Europe: an energy systems analysis

摘要

There has recently been a concerted effort to commence a transition to fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) in Europe. In 2010, a consortium of automotive and energy companies released an influential McKinsey-coordinated report, using a total cost of ownership (TCO) methodology, that concludes that FCVs are ready for commercial deployment. Subsequently, public-private H2Mobility programmes have been established across Europe to develop businesses cases for the introduction of FCVs, with UK H2Mobility recently publishing a roadmap for FCV introduction. Yet other studies, using energy systems methodologies, have forecast only a minor role for FCVs, after 2030. We reconcile the conflicting insights from the TCO and energy systems methodologies using a new version of the UK MARKAL energy systems model with a revised transport sector based on vehicle data from the McKinsey-coordinated report. We show that the differences between studies are caused primarily by inconsistent data assumptions rather than methodological differences. Many energy systems models start transitioning to FCVs around 2040 as they do not account for transition dynamics and we show how applying growth constraints can more realistically represent insights from innovation theory. We conclude that the optimum deployment of FCVs, from an energy systems perspective, should in fact commence from 2015.