Alexander Vastenavond | Shell

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Presentation Description

Large-scale hydrogen infrastructure development projects are actively in progress to develop a hydrogen refueling network for the heavy-duty sector across Europe. However, two of the critical questions that hinder these projects are: i) what types of hydrogen onboard storage system the industry should converge to; and ii) what the hydrogen demand will be for different use cases (i.e., what percentage of the customers’ fleet will be using hydrogen and electricity, respectively). Our work, through collaboration between Shell and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), aims to identify the most promising hydrogen storage options and project the relative market share of future hydrogen and electric powertrains. The core of this work is the development of a vehicle consumer choice model by NREL (Heavy Duty Automotive Deployment Options Projection Tool, HD-ADOPT) for the European tractor-trailer market. The model estimates sales based on the weighted value of key attributes including vehicle price, fuel cost, acceleration, and range, for which the consumer preference is derived from robust analysis of sales and registration data licensed from IHS Markit and public sources. The model has a graphical user interface that manages inputs, simulation, and results. The model has the capabilities to compete fuel cell, hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE), and hydrogen-diesel bi-fuel ICE vehicle technologies against diesel ICE, diesel-electric hybrid, and battery electric trucks. Four onboard hydrogen technologies are analyzed, including 350 bar hydrogen gas, 700 bar hydrogen gas, subcooled liquid hydrogen, and cryo-compressed hydrogen. Leveraging the expertise within Shell, the key technology inputs for the projection period are validated, including fuel prices, powertrain component costs (battery, fuel cell, hydrogen tank), and refill rates (hydrogen, electricity). Our results compare how quickly each powertrain can penetrate the market in terms of the number of annual sales and total fleet as well as the fuel consumption by fuel type. In addition, our work quantifies the influence of powertrain technology performance, fuel rates, and government incentives/penalties on technology adoption rates, and thus identifies the levers that are crucial to the competitiveness of the hydrogen fleet for the tractor-trailer market. Our findings will have important strategic implications to the design of hydrogen refueling stations and hydrogen mobility business.

Speaker Biography

Alexander Vastenavond is the Hydrogen Product Strategy Team Lead in Shell Projects & Technology, accountable for the development of Shell’s Hydrogen Technology Roadmap, the creation of strategic partnerships and service agreements to advance Shell’s competitive positioning in the nascent hydrogen market. Prior to that, Alexander was the Product Development Team Lead for the Hydrogen Mobility business where he led a diverse group of engineers delivering both software and hardware products like dispensers, refuelers, high pressure compressors, digital platforms, H2 payment, logistic optimization systems, etc.
Alexander has been in the energy industry for almost 20 years and has worked for several IOCs, both in upstream and downstream. He started his career as a deepwater drilling engineer, but – over the last 10 years - has shifted his focus towards innovation in the renewable energy and hydrogen sector. Alexander has contributed to several hydrogen industry groups like ISO, H2Accelerate, the Hydrogen Council, etc.
Alexander has a MSc degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University Delft and a Professional Education in System Engineering from MIT.

Co-presenters

Yan Wang
Shell Projects & Technology

Aaron Brooker
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Lauren Sittler
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Fan Yang
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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