Impact of Hydrogen in the Road Transport Sector for Portugal 2010-2050

This paper presents an analysis of the potential economic-wide energy and CO2 emissions implications of hydrogen vehicle penetration into the Portuguese road transport over the time-horizon 2010-2050. The energy and emissions implications are obtained using PATTS (Projections for Alternative Transportation Technologies Simulation), an excel spreadsheet model based on forecast scenarios. Historical data and trends of gasoline versus diesel share, fleet scrappadge, representative light-duty vehicle technologies life cycle energy and emission factors, are used to estimate, on a yearly basis, the total fleet life cycle energy consumption, CO2 emissions and air quality related impact. The macroeconomic effects are assessed with a Computable General Equilibrium model that is solved as a non-linear optimization problem formulated in GAMS software capable of dealing with substitution between labour, capital stock, electric energy and non-electric energy factors of production. It integrates parameter inputs obtained from PATTS tool where the transportation sector becomes hydrogen driven and a wide hydrogen refuelling infrastructure is deployed. The simulation experiments show that "hydrogen technologies" are likely to become economically viable. Household consumption, real GDP and investment increase from baseline. The positive impact upon the economic variables is supplemented by energy costs reductions, of just -0.1 to -0.3 percent per annum, in both high-price and low-price cases. The economy grows faster in the low-price case where the reductions in energy costs are also more pronounced. CO2 avoided emissions due to hydrogen economy reach a maximum of 2 kton/km in 2050, if the natural gas steam reforming production method is adopted.