UVic students develop award-winning fuel station design

by Mary-Lou Leidl

A 3D image of the award-winning fuel station.

Filling up your vehicle along the hydrogen highway may happen a lot sooner than you think, thanks to the efforts of a team of UVic business, economics and engineering students.

The team's design for a hydrogen fueling station that could open by March 2006 won the top prize in the first annual University Student Hydrogen Design Contest. The announcement was made by the U.S.-based National Hydrogen Association (NHA) and the U.S. Department of Energy, co-sponsors for the contest, on April 27 at the NHA's annual Hydrogen Conference in Los Angeles.

The nine-member team, seven of whom are members of UVic's institute for integrated energy systems (IESVic), spent a frenetic two months on a design that involves storing liquid hydrogen in elevated storage containers and vapourizing it to a low temperature of –20°C for a relatively quick four-minute fuel-up.

Reducing the costs of fueling a vehicle with hydrogen is vital to making it commercially viable. Apart from technical design and safety analysis, the design was also judged on economic viability, environmental performance and the team's plans for marketing and education.

"This is a very big accomplishment for the team given the tremendous amount of attention hydrogen technologies are getting from research communities throughout North America," says Dr. Andrew Rowe, a mechanical engineering professor and member of IESVic. Rowe advised the team of John Dikeos, Jordan Haas, Jesse Maddaloni, Tom Owen, Tara Smolak, Pedrum Sodouri, Louise St. Germain, Ron Songprakorp and Armando Tura.

According to the team's report, the overall well-to-wheel pathway of the hydrogen fueling process generates up to 95 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions and requires up to 42 per cent less energy than the conventional gasoline pathway. The design for the Vancouver site requires a low-capital investment and uses components readily available from a proven supplier base.

As for costs to the consumer, for now the price of hydrogen would be higher than gasoline. But Tara Smolak, an economics graduate, says the after-tax price of hydrogen and gasoline could be more comparable, especially if hydrogen were to get special tax breaks due to its low environmental impact. She notes that too often when doing an economic analysis, environmental impact is not taken into account.

Adds teammate Jordan Haas, "Hydrogen is an emerging technology, so it's expensive. Just the development of the infrastructure itself is huge. It's going to take more than academics developing technology; we need a policy push from government to make it work."

Appearance was also an important part of the design. "We didn't want the station to look like a scary industrial site," says Tom Owen, a mechanical engineering graduate. "We wanted a station that, while safe and innovative, was user-friendly and decent to look at." More importantly perhaps, the design had to allow for flexibility with a minimum of modification for future needs.

"Liquid hydrogen is a beautiful solution," adds Rowe. "It has many characteristics that make it a winner, but it requires a lot of energy to turn hydrogen into a liquid, so storage is a hot area of research." Rowe says there won't be one best solution for our energy needs, but a palette of solutions from which we can draw. Fortunately, versatility is one of hydrogen's strengths.