Electric Mobility in Portugal: Current Situation and Forecasts for Fuel Cell Vehicles

Fuel cell-based electric vehicles technologies and challenges

Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming popular and are gaining more focus and awareness due to several factors, namely the decreasing prices and higher environmental awareness. EVs are classified into several categories in terms of energy production and storage. The standard EV technologies that have been developed and tested and are commercially available include the fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), the battery-electric vehicles, the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, the hybrid electric vehicles, and the flexible fuel vehicles. Yet, the FCEVs show relatively small superiority over the other technologies from autonomy and refueling. The paper presents a review of EVs focusing on hydrogen FCEVs with the above matters in mind. More specifically, an examination of the FCEV technology and their prospective worldwide is investigated in this work.

A Perspective on Decarbonizing Mobility: An All-Electrification vs. an All-Hydrogenization Venue

The growing demand for low-carbon fuel is predicted by ultimate goals to fit the carbon neutrality by 2050 in many countries and regions including the European Union. According to the International Energy Agency, the CO2 emissions related to transportation stand for around 30% of total annual emissions, and so, the decarbonization of the mobility sector has the highest priority. In this work, we attempt to evaluate the expected demand for low-carbon fuels, including blue and green hydrogen, and low-carbon electricity in order to compare the available and required capacities of low-carbon fuels and electricity. According to our calculations based on the figures from 2020, the transition toward H2 mobility would require an amount of hydrogen equal to 366 million tons/annum, and by 2035, this requirement will increase up to 422 million tons/annum, which is several times larger than the existing H2 production capacities. We have estimated the volume of the carbon capture and storage facilities required for full decarbonization of the mobility sector globally, and in the case of hydrogen mobility driven by blue hydrogen, it exceeds 4.0 billions tons of CO2 per annum, while the decarbonization of coal-fired plants will require more than 10.0 billions tons of CO2 per annum. In addition to the calculation of required resources, we have estimated the cost of the fuel and required capital investments and have compared different possible solutions from different points of view: economic viability, technical readiness, and social perception. Finally, it can be concluded that the decarbonization of the mobility sector would require a complex solution involving both low-carbon hydrogen and electrification, and the capacities of low-carbon fuel must be significantly increased in the following decade to fulfill the climate goals.

Switching Frequency Effects on the Efficiency and Harmonic Distortion in a Three-Phase Five-Level CHBMI Prototype with Multicarrier PWM Schemes: Experimental Analysis

The current climatic scenario requires the use of innovative solutions to increase the production of electricity from renewable energy sources. Multilevel Power Inverters are a promising solution to improve the penetration of renewable energy sources into the electrical grid. Moreover, the performance of MPIs is a function of the modulation strategy employed and of its features (modulation index and switching frequency). This paper presents an extended and experimental analysis of three-phase five-level Cascaded H-Bridges Multilevel Inverter performance in terms of efficiency and harmonic content considering several MC PWM modulation strategies. In detail, the CHBMI performance is analyzed by varying the modulation index and the switching frequency. For control purposes, the NI System On Module sbRIO-9651 control board, a dedicated FPGA-based control board for power electronics and drive applications programmable in the LabVIEW environment, is used. The paper describes the modulation strategies implementation, the test bench set-up, and the experimental investigations carried out. The results obtained in terms of Total Harmonic Distorsion (THD) and efficiency are analyzed, compared, and discussed.