An Investigation On FCV Commercializing Targets And Developing Strategies

Automotive industry makes great contribution to the development of human society, but at the same time it consumes huge energy resources and results in severe environmental pollution. In order to solve the crisis of energy resource and environmental pollution, it is an urgent task to research and develop vehicles that can save energy consumption and emit no pollution. Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) is the vehicle that we are looking for to use clean fuel (hydrogen energy) and realize zero emission. There are various kinds of fuel cell with different operation condition, usable region and technical difficulty. It is necessart to study the suitability of the fuel cells as vehicle power unit. The prospect of FCV commercialization concerned eagerly by society and government is an issue of system engineering in which hydrogen production, storage, and provision, evaluation of energy consumption from total energy analysis, possibility of market admission as to FCV cost and technical reliabity, etc. are included. These questions are tried to answer in this thesis by means of investigation on FCV market targets and developing strategy. Firstly, the status and developing trend of FCV in home and abroad are introduced. The fuel cell classification and their different features are analyzed. The suitability as vehicle energy unit and further technical research needed are discussed.After that, the ways by which hydrogen is produced are analyzed and the energy efficiency during fuel production process assessed. The fuel life cycle analysis is conducted by investigating energy consumption, pollutant emission and economy during the different periods of the fuel life cycle. It is indicated that the FCV equipped with PEMFC and fueled with hydrogen produced from natural gas reforming or from water electrolysis by electricity obtained from waterpower is the most reasonable and feasible selection. In addition, FCV performance simulation is also fulfilled in the thesis as a part of well to wheel analysis, and the vehicle performance parameters for a given specification are achieved.At last, the barriers that should be clear away before FCV commercialization are analyzed in detail in the thesis according to the constraints come from technique, cost, resources, market and basic infrastructure. It is attempted from analyses of these barriers to find the correct developing strategies favorable to the FCV growing up.