Planning of Hydrogen Refueling Stations in Urban Setting While Considering Hydrogen Redistribution

Electrified transportation systems and renewable energy resources have been recognized as effective environmental-friendly technologies against global warming contributed by greenhouse gas (GHG). Remarkably, hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric vehicles can outperform battery-powered electric vehicles largely in the sense of the driving range and the refueling time. However, both of them require a better coordination of infrastructure system and renewable energy resources to achieve a significant reduction of GHG emissions. This article aims to maximize the long-term profitability for the planning model of hydrogen refueling stations, where the capacitated flow refueling location model is leveraged for maximal traffic flow coverage. Furthermore, we discuss various real-world constraints, such as traffic network constraints, distribution network constraints, hydrogen balance constraints, and energy constraints for electric vehicles, to make the planning model more practical. By considering the uncertainty of the short-term refueling demand across the city, an approach for geographically redistributing hydrogen among the stations is also presented where the minimal cost of redistribution is modeled by one-commodity pickup-and-delivery traveling salesman problem. A real-life case study of Western Sydney is adopted to testify the efficiency of the planning model under current and future cost levels. Finally, a numerical simulation is utilized to demonstrate the validity of the hydrogen redistribution method.