Toyota 'Mirai' Fuel Cell Sedan

[Yggdrasill]

Whilst there is no renewable energy surplus at present (my understanding is that any renewable energy is used first, by the grid) my hope is that in X years time we will be, say, 99% renewables and then when the wind blows at night we will have surplus.

Perhaps making Hydrogen is better as a means of "storing energy" than pumping water up hill?

Actually if anyone is able to show a comparison of the two I'd be interested to know. If pumping water up hill is better than I'm fresh out of any thoughts as to why Hydrogen would be useful at all.

Round trip, pumped hydro is in the area of 80% efficient, while hydrogen storage is in the area of 35-40% efficient. But the hydrogen fans will be quick to point out that efficiency isn't everything. Pumped hydro requires a suitable location, preferably two substantial freshwater lakes that are close together but with a big difference in elevation. Salt water will eat away at the turbines, and pumping salt water into a freshwater lake isn't very good for the lake.

I do think that hydrogen could potentially fulfil some role for energy storage in the future. Though not when it comes to leveling out production variations over hours and days, batteries are better for that. Hydrogen can be suitable for leveling out the production variations over the year. You have a lot more sun in summer than in winter, so it may be smart to produce hydrogen during summer. However, I don't think the hydrogen will be used directly in transportation. Using it in CHP systems in winter, or combining it with CO2 it to produce synthetic diesel for aviation are two possible applications.

I can imagine that small-ish batteries in each home, enough just to tide the house over, or feed back to the grid, during peak demand might be better for surplus, or off-peak, electricity. I have PV panels on the roof, any surplus not used in the house is "sold" back to the grid; would it be better [in general, or environmental, terms] for me to "keep" all the power I generate from my PV panels? or is exporting my excess to the grid, and then buying some back at night, the best way? Should people like me, with PV on the roof, have a PowerWall or somesuch? I'm not ecstatic about having my own home electrolysis kit!!

Supplying the grid is fine. You're basically just supplying your neighbours with power, and the rest of the grid doesn't have to do as much of the work. Long term, though, when all the neighbours also have solar and want to supply to the grid, a Power Wall will make a lot more sense. Because the alternative would be to supply the grid at near zero or even negative prices.

 

[nwdiver]

Surplus electricity is an oxymoron. And one certainly can't base the fuel needs of any large fleet of vehicles on"surplus energy".

Tell that to Texas Wind Farms...

I think Hydrogen storage might have a future... but not for another ~10+ years. There are still a lot of variables at play; Depends a lot on how the cost disparity between energy storage and production play out. With batteries at ~$300/kWh and solar at ~$1/w if you wanted to generate a higher percentage of your power from solar it makes more fiscal sense to overbuild solar and have stranded energy at times (surplus electricity) than it would to have excess storage capacity.

If the cost to generate power falls as fast or faster than the cost of batteries then at some point it will make sense to use stranded power to split water. As WK057 has discovered... if electricity available from solar PV isn't consumed or stored it's lost. Better to use surplus electrons to split water at 40% efficiency then lose them completely. The capital cost of electrolyzers would also have to be low enough to cost effectively run them at a very low capacity factor... surplus renewable power would likely be predictable enough to base an industry around it...

I can imagine that small-ish batteries in each home, enough just to tide the house over, or feed back to the grid, during peak demand might be better for surplus, or off-peak, electricity.

Grid transmission is extremely efficient... typically >95%. One of the genius aspects of how the power wall appears to be designed is it's ~400vdc => ~400vdc. There are no intermediate steps to AC or ~48vdc. Even with the higher efficiencies of the power wall ~90%... it's still more efficient to export power for consumption than it is to store it for later use.

There will obviously come a time that solar penetration will reach a point that storage is necessary; until then....

 

[Johan]

Tell that to Texas Wind Farms...

I think Hydrogen storage might have a future... but not for another ~10+ years. There are still a lot of variables at play; Depends a lot on how the cost disparity between energy storage and production play out. With batteries at ~$300/kWh and solar at ~$1/w if you wanted to generate a higher percentage of your power from solar it makes more fiscal sense to overbuild solar and have stranded energy at times (surplus electricity) than it would to have excess storage capacity.

If the cost to generate power falls as fast or faster than the cost of batteries then at some point it will make sense to use stranded power to split water. As WK057 has discovered... if electricity available from solar PV isn't consumed or stored it's lost. Better to use surplus electrons to split water at 40% efficiency then lose them completely. The capital cost of electrolyzers would also have to be low enough to cost effectively run them at a very low capacity factor... surplus renewable power would likely be predictable enough to base an industry around it...



Grid transmission is extremely efficient... typically >95%. One of the genius aspects of how the power wall appears to be designed is it's ~400vdc => ~400vdc. There are no intermediate steps to AC or ~48vdc. Even with the higher efficiencies of the power wall ~90%... it's still more efficient to export power for consumption than it is to store it for later use.

There will obviously come a time that solar penetration will reach a point that storage is necessary; until then....

My point is that when there is, and due to renewables will be an increasing, mis-match between production and consumption there are numerous other things that should/would/will happen before you would go to the inefficient and extreme length of making, storing and using hydrogen (other than in special applications, personal cars and general electricity storage not included). A short list:
- Better matching of energy consumption to production pattern (there's lots of potential here in most societies)
- Batteries
- Pumped hydro
- Pumped-heat electricity storage
- Molten salt technology

etc.

 

[nwdiver]

My point is that when there is, and due to renewables will be an increasing, mis-match between production and consumption there are numerous other things that should/would/will happen before you would go to the inefficient and extreme length of making, storing and using hydrogen (other than in special applications, personal cars and general electricity storage not included). A short list:
- Better matching of energy consumption to production pattern (there's lots of potential here in most societies)
- Batteries
- Pumped hydro
- Pumped-heat electricity storage
- Molten salt technology

etc.

Agreed; Which is why I doubt Hydrogen storage will make much sense in the next ~10 years. But IMO it's likely that the cost disparity between wind/solar production and the various storage methods will remain to the point that the amounts of stranded production we see will continue to increase. To some extent it will remain cheaper to overbuild production to fill in the edges of the production bell curve than to add more storage. This will lead to periods of peak production with increasing levels of curtailment.

The one benefit Hydrogen has is that it's the cheapest way to store energy on a raw kWh basis. The round trip efficiency is abhorrent... but that's irrelevant if the energy you're using would have been curtailed anyway.

Preferred order of priority;
- Demand shift
- Store energy
- If there's no demand and no where else to stash electrons then split water

 

[Takumi]

I don't understand. Why would you want to split water? In the maintenance section, how hard is to keep equipment in optimal condition vs. the other options?

 

[johnnyS]

I saw this article this morning:
Portable Hydrogen Fuelers Go To Six Toyota Mirai Dealers As Stations Lag

Since the public fueling stations are not functional, Toyota is providing temporary fuel stations at six Toyota dealerships that can fuel a Mirai to half full or about 150 miles of range. The temporary trailer mounted fuel stations can only be operated by dealership personnel. When the fuel station is empty it has to be trucked back to Carson to be re-filled. For the northern California dealerships that is at least a day turn-around on their fueling station.

I bet the six dealerships that have these temporary refueling stations will regret agreeing to sell the Mirai.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I saw this article this morning:
Portable Hydrogen Fuelers Go To Six Toyota Mirai Dealers As Stations Lag

Since the public fueling stations are not functional, Toyota is providing temporary fuel stations at six Toyota dealerships that can fuel a Mirai to half full or about 150 miles of range. The temporary trailer mounted fuel stations can only be operated by dealership personnel. When the fuel station is empty it has to be trucked back to Carson to be re-filled. For the northern California dealerships that is at least a day turn-around on their fueling station.

I bet the six dealerships that have these temporary refueling stations will regret agreeing to sell the Mirai.

I will say that it is better than the nothing that Hyundai provided when owners were frustrated by problems at stations. However, it obviously shows there's a long way to go.

 

[MacroP]

I saw this article this morning:
Portable Hydrogen Fuelers Go To Six Toyota Mirai Dealers As Stations Lag.

I was (probably incorrectly) guessing that Toyota were losing $50k per vehicle they made. With all these temporary H2 stations - scratch that figure and make that a loss of $100k per car :tongue:

 

[johnnyS]

For those that are still trying to believe it will be environmentally friendly think of the environmental impact of trucking these fuel tanks to the dealerships for just 40 half tanks of hydrogen.

 

[green1]

For those that are still trying to believe it will be environmentally friendly think of the environmental impact of trucking these fuel tanks to the dealerships for just 40 half tanks of hydrogen.

Better yet, imagine the impact of one of those stations gets in a collision enroute....

 

[Yggdrasill]

I am so glad I don't own a Mirai. 150 miles range means you need to fill up about every ~3 days if you want to use the car normally. But imagine pulling up at a dealer with 20 miles remaining, and the filling station isn't there!

I guess it's a good thing they've placed the filling stations at the dealers, so that it's easy to get a loaner, while you wait for the filling station to return.

 

[RubberToe]

November Mirai CVRP registrations up 100% over October !

 

[eloder]

I feel like the Mirai is going to become one of Tesla's biggest advertisements ever a bunch of Mirai owners are going to wonder why they didn't shell out that same money for a lightly used Tesla as they see more and more Teslas crowd onto California roads.

I can't wait until the H2 crowd has to pay for their own fuel too. $13/gallon equivalent, that'll just be too good to read the rage.

 

[ggies07]

Every time I see the name Mirai I think I'm seeing Mirage.....which fits nicely.

 

[vinnie97]

You're not the only one.

 

[RubberToe]

One more cockroach crawled out of the woodwork in November...

 

[Yggdrasill]

If the 150% monthly rate of growth continues, Toyota will be selling 1.5 million Mirai per month in December 2016!

 

[RubberToe]

If the 150% monthly rate of growth continues, Toyota will be selling 1.5 million Mirai per month in December 2016!

Tesla Killer !

 

[wraithnot]

Yep, they did it in October. First H2 Trip Between Los Angeles and San Francisco Conveniently Ignores Tesla Supercharger Network | Transport Evolved

I was using the Tesla battery swap station at Harris Ranch on Monday so I decided to take a look at the Harris Ranch hydrogen station since it was only a few hundred feet from the swap station. Once again, no one was using it. But this time I got close enough to read "dispenser unavailable" on the screen so even if a fuel cell car came by, they wouldn't have been able to use it. There was also a "Temporary use permit" that was dated 10/21 and expired on April 21 2016 stuck next to the display. I wonder if they can simply renew the permit every 6 months or if they have to get a more permanent permit by April 21.

I was a little shocked to see the price displayed as $16.49 a kg. It would cost $82.45 to fill up the 5 kg capacity tank on a Toyota Mirai. That works out to 26.4 cents a mile since it has a 312 mile range. If you compare that to a new 52 mpg Toyota Prius, gas would have to cost $13.74 a gallon for it to cost that much to drive the Prius!


Edit- if I understand the sticker to the left of the top display correctly, the dispenser is only accurate to plus or minus 5%. I'm pretty sure gas pumps have to be a lot more accurate than that.

 

[Lloyd]