Article #715 - Analysis Tools

The following links will take you to websites that explain and provide access to analysis tools and models that might be useful in studies of hydrogen and fuel cells in the transportation sector:

• H2A Website The H2A effort involved developing a standardized approach and set of assumptions for estimating the lifecycle costs of hydrogen production and delivery technologies, leading to an equitable comparison of costs across technologies. The H2A characterizations of hydrogen production and delivery technologies was based on a review of the public literature, drawing from it the best available information about capital and operating costs, and energy and/or feedstock consumption rates. In addition, some new cost estimates (not already found in the literature) were made during the course of the work. In most cases, information was included in a process model such as ASPEN to help ensure that the flow rates, temperatures, pressures, and other stream parameters are adequately and consistently analyzed.
• ANL GREET Model To fully evaluate energy and emission impact of advanced vehicle technologies and new transportation fuels, the fuel cycle from wells to wheels and the vehicle cycle through material recovery and vehicle disposal need to be considered. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Argonne National Laboratory has developed a fuel cycle model called GREET (Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation). The model allows researchers and analysts to evaluate per-mile energy and emission effects of various vehicle and fuel combinations on a full fuel-cycle basis. Argonne has applied GREET for DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), individual state agencies, and the auto industry to evaluate energy and emission benefits of vehicle-fuel systems. There are more than 2000 GREET users worldwide.
• ANL VISION Model With DOE support, Argonne has developed the VISION model to provide estimates of aggregate energy use, oil use, and carbon emission impacts of highway vehicle technologies for a given year between 2000 and 2050. The model simulates both light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles with powertrain technologies such as conventional engines, hybrids, electric, and fuel cells. The model can be used to generate savings in annual oil use and carbon emissions, together with other outputs of alternative cases under which new vehicle-fuel systems gradually penetrate vehicle fleets, relative to the basecase technologies and fuels.
• Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality is developing a modeling system that will estimate emissions for on-road and nonroad sources, cover a broad range of pollutants, and allow multiple scale analysis, from fine-scale analysis to national inventory estimation. When fully implemented, MOVES will serve as the replacement for MOBILE6 and NONROAD. The new system will not necessarily be a single piece of software but instead will encompass the necessary tools, algorithms, underlying data, and guidance necessary for use in all official analyses associated with regulatory development, compliance with statutory requirements, and national and/or regional inventory projections. This project was previously known as the New Generation Mobile Source Emissions Model (NGM).
• National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) The National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) is a computer-based, energy-economy modeling system of U.S. energy markets for the midterm period through 2025. NEMS projects the production, imports, conversion, consumption, and prices of energy, which are subject to assumptions on macroeconomic and financial factors, world energy markets, resource availability and costs, behavioral and technological choice criteria, cost and performance characteristics of energy technologies, and demographics. NEMS was designed and implemented by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of DOE.
• ANL PSAT/PSAT-PRO The Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT) is a simulation program designed to be meet the requirements of automotive engineering throughout the development process. PSAT simulates a number of drivetrain configurations (conventional, series, parallel, power split, electric, and fuel cell) chosen according to customer expectations. PSAT is also well-suited for component sizing, control strategy development, and optimization. Because of its accurate dynamics component models, PSAT can be implemented directly and tested at the bench scale or in a vehicle (using its extension for prototyping, PSAT-PRO). It is available by license.
• PVWATTS calculates electrical energy produced by a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed PVWATTS to permit non-experts to quickly obtain performance estimates for grid-connected PV systems within the United States and its territories.