Retail Hydrogen Station Reliability Status and Advances

Journal Article · 21 January 2020 · Reliability Engineering and System Safety

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2020.106823 · OSTI ID:1603259

Kurtz, Jennifer M.  ^[1]; Sprik, Samuel ^[1]; Peters, Michael C. ^[1]; Bradley, Thomas H. ^[2]

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1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
2. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)

One of the most vital emerging commercial markets for hydrogen is fuel cell-powered mobility including cars, trucks, and buses. These vehicles are refueled via a network of hydrogen fueling stations, with the highest number of U.S. stations being in California. The numbers of both fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and hydrogen stations have increased in the last two years, with anecdotal information from FCEV drivers indicating that station reliability is hurting the consumer acceptability of FCEV technologies. Therefore, this study benchmarks the current state of hydrogen station reliability in practice and presents on-going research that is investigating the failures that are contribute to hydrogen station reliability issues. This is accomplished with an analysis of operation, safety, and maintenance data from hydrogen stations and fuel cell electric vehicles to benchmark the maintenance and failure of hydrogen stations and their components. This analysis, of over 5,000 station maintenance events, presents the leading maintenance categories and failure rates, and is a prerequisite to the development of data-driven reliability improvement plans. We present a reliability growth analysis and on-going research into the root causes of failure for dispensers, a particularly failure-prone subsystem.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Fuel Cell Technologies Program (EE-3F)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1603259
• Report Number(s): NREL/JA--5400-74265
• Journal Information: Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Journal Name: Reliability Engineering and System Safety; ISSN 0951-8320
• Publisher: ElsevierCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English