Economic and environmental viability of the production, storage, and distribution of hydrogen for the vehicle sector in the province of Córdoba

TERESITA HUMANA ; AGUSTIN SIGAL; PEDRO MUÑOZ; GABRIEL CORREA; ESTEBAN FRANCESCHINI

Simposio; HYCELTEC 2022 VIII Symposium on Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Advanced Batteries; 2022

Large-scale energy production and its excessive use generate negative impacts on the environment that will affect the living conditions of future generations, as much of the global primary energy comes from fossil fuels.Argentina, since 1983 when the replacement of liquid fuels was implemented, has become the leading country in the use of Natural Gas both for the production of primary energy and in the transportation sector. Such is the case of the province of Córdoba, the second largest in population in our country, which is representative of the development of the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) industry at national level [1]. In Argentina, the transport sector was responsible for the emission of 54.2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2eq) in 2019 [5].To limit global warming to 1.5°C, it is essential to study the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies, and the application of new energy vectors. Along with electricity and the latest generation of batteries, one of the most important energy vectors is hydrogen (H2)[2]. In recent years, it has been globally identified as a key element of the future clean energy matrix [6], as it is capable of providing safe, economically competitive energy that is free of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions [3].Faced with this scenario, it is necessary to guide society towards safer, more durable and, above all, non-polluting energy systems. The role of public energy policies is essential to promote the expansion of renewable energy development [7,][8],[9],[10], as Argentina has an enormous potential for exploitable renewable resources, including solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, as well as biomass and nuclear energy. This makes the province of Córdoba an excellent case model for the study of the inclusion of hydrogen technology, new generation, transportation and distribution of this fuel. Thus, in this work the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) and emissions associated to the production of Hydrogen to replace CNG in vehicles is analysed, using two different production sources, electricity from renewable energy and electricity from the Argentine electric grid.