Hydrogen Pre-Cooling System for Filling Medium and Heavy-Duty Fuel Cell Vehicles

The Department of Energy solicited advancements in pre-cooling hydrogen for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MD/HD). Required technical performance is a cooling capacity of 100 kW for a hydrogen flowrate of 10 kg/min. Temperature requirements for the hydrogen stream are -40 °C with -33 °C reached within 30 seconds of startup. Skyhaven Systems, LLC is developing an intermediate cold energy storage system to supplement hydrogen pre-cooling systems for MD/HD vehicles. The system will use thermal energy storage to provide increased cooling capacity to meet the fueling demands of MD/HD vehicles. This proposed Phase I program will develop a thermal energy storage system to provide supplemental cooling to commercial chiller systems for filling of MD/HD vehicles. With this intermediate energy storage system, the load from pre-cooling MD/HD vehicles will be spread over a larger period, reducing the required cooling capacity of the system. An intermediate energy storage for pre-cooling of hydrogen has commercial value in enabling hydrogen filling stations to accommodate MD/HD at reasonable filling times. In addition, it could be applied to light duty hydrogen pre-cooling to decrease the cooling capacity of the hydrogen pre- cooling systems. Integrating a thermal energy storage also reduces the environmental impact on the cooling system and provides for increased resiliency and a more levelized electrical consumption of the pre-cooling system.