Fuel cell vs. battery storage
In traffic, however, the fuel cell faces a powerful competitor: battery storage. In comparison, hydrogen has serious disadvantages. If fuel cell vehicles are really to conquer the roads on a grand scale, this requires a new infrastructure, starting with the electrolysers through to the filling stations. The driver, on the other hand, can charge his electric car with mains power from any socket.
In addition, there is a second major shortcoming: the hydrogen concept is anything but not efficient.
The hopes of many experts from science and industry therefore rest on electrolysis: water is put under electricity to crack the connection between hydrogen and oxygen. The charm of the power-to-gas concept lies in the fact that excess wind and solar power can be used. The hydrogen produced in this way is therefore carbon dioxide-neutral. And on top of that, such an urgently needed power storage system for wind power and photovoltaics would have been found.
The efficiency of conventional electrolysers is only 62 to 70 percent. Further energy is lost through storage and Transport. The efficiency drops by a further twenty percentage points when trucks deliver hydrogen to filling stations. And even the fuel cell itself, which recovers the desired electricity from the hydrogen, consumes energy. Its efficiency is only around sixty percent. Over the entire process chain, only a quarter to a third of the solar or wind energy arrives in the engine. Battery-powered electric cars, on the other hand, account for more than ninety percent. Enormous amounts of green electricity would therefore be required to make hydrogen cars suitable.
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