The California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission released the Joint Agency Staff Report on Assembly Bill 8: 2017 Annual Assessment of Time and Cost Needed to Attain 100 Hydrogen Refueling Stations in California that follows two previously published joint reports in accordance with Assembly Bill 8 (AB 8) that was signed into law in 2013.
California currently has 31 open retail hydrogen stations and another 34 stations in development. With these stations, California is nearly two-thirds of the way to reaching the 100-station milestone set forth in AB 8.
Highlights from the report include:
- The average cost per kilogram of station capacity decreased by 27 percent, from $8,689 to $6,409 in two years, another sign that station costs are decreasing.
- The large volume of applications from the last grant funding opportunity may encourage the Energy Commission to lower the funding per station, enabling them to fund more.
- The Energy Commission’s updated business-as-usual scenario still falls short of reaching 100 stations by 2020, which is the current request by some stakeholders.
- In an effort to accelerate station deployment, the Energy Commission and CARB are analyzing costs and researching alternative funding mechanisms to identify ways that stations could be funded even more quickly and at reduced cost, which enables more stations to be funded with the same amount of money.
- One possible strategy awards developers multiple stations that could enable them to plan a station network more effectively and achieve economies of scale.
- Achieving a sustainable and self-sufficient market means that stakeholders must look beyond the 100-station milestone. Stakeholders, including the Energy Commission and CARB, are engaged in a 2030 vision process for fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure that is being facilitated by the California Fuel Cell Partnership.
The full report can be read at http://www.energy.ca.gov/2017publications/CEC-600-2017-011/CEC-600-2017-011.pdf.