Techno-Economic Assessment of On-Grid Biogas-to-Hydrogen Pathways for On-Site Hydrogen Refueling Stations

Abstract

Biogas-to-hydrogen pathways can support sustainable hydrogen refueling stations through on-site hydrogen production from renewable biogas. This study presents a techno-economic assessment of two on-grid biogas-to-hydrogen configurations based on steam and autothermal reforming, considering three station capacities of 200, 500, and 1000 kg H2/day. Technical models were integrated with an economic model to assess the effects of plant scale and economic conditions on overall performance. The technical results show that the overall specific energy consumption is approximately 63.7 kWh/kg H2 for autothermal reforming, compared with 80.0 kWh/kg H2 for steam reforming. The dispensed levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) decreases with increasing station capacity, from 10.61 to 8.06 €/kg H2 for steam reforming and from 11.28 to 8.08 €/kg H2 for autothermal reforming. At the assumed hydrogen selling price of 10.66 €/kg H2, economic performance improves with increasing station capacity. Under baseline conditions, steam reforming is more competitive at 200 and 500 kg H2/day, whereas the two configurations become nearly equivalent at 1000 kg H2/day. Sensitivity analyses show that BtH_SR is more competitive below biogas prices of approximately 0.058 and 0.042 €/kWh for the 500 and 1000 kg H2/day stations, respectively, while BtH_ATR is favored above these thresholds. Higher electricity prices favor BtH_SR, with the 1000 kg H2/day configurations becoming nearly equivalent at approximately 0.138 €/kWh. The nominal interest rate has the strongest effect on economic feasibility, with all investigated configurations becoming unfeasible above a value of 13.3%.