The project aims to define a future system using hydrogen to complement current clean technologies and integrate different sectors in Canadian municipalities for the net-zero transition, and to quantify the associated economic and environmental benefits and risks.
The project's objectives are:
- Design optimal hydrogen pathways in different sectors in Canadian municipalities, such as building, transportation and energy.
- Quantify the cradle-to-grave GHG emissions and compare the hydrogen pathways, including production, storage, distribution, and use.
- Evaluate the economic benefits and risks in sectoral competitions of using hydrogen in Canadian municipalities.
- Develop a collaborative simulation tool to support the synthesis and evaluation of transition scenarios with transactive incentive models toward net-zero.
The project is comprised of two major modules:
- Module 1: Study how hydrogen can be used to integrate different sectors, such as building, transportation, and energy in Canadian municipalities, using detailed techno-economic analysis and system optimization modelling. (Objectives 1-3)
- Module 2: Socio-techno-economic transactive modelling and collaborative simulation tool to support the transition to net-zero. (Objective 4)
Waterloo Climate Institute member contributions
XiaoYu Wu is the principal investigator of the project and part of a wider team spearheading this important work thanks to Environment and Climate Change Canada's Climate Action and Awareness Fund (CAAF). This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada.
UWaterloo co-investigator
Michael Fowler is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineeringan and an internationally recognized expert in hydrogen energy system modeling. His research focuses on electrochemical power sources and storage systems of vehicles, reliability assessment of electrochemical storage systems and the clean production and distribution of hydrogen.
Project co-leads
Hossam Gaber is aProfessor in the Department of Energy and Nuclear Engineering at Ontario Tech University and a distinguished international researcher in smart energy grid engineering. His research pertains to advanced waste-to energy technologies using plasma, nuclear engineering and developing new technologies for smart energy grids.
Olivier Bahn is a Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at HEC Montréal and a well-established leader on several research projects regarding Swiss and European climate and energy policies. His current research interests are in energy economic, stochastic programming, international environmental agreements and computation of economic equilibriums.
List of external partners
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City of Kitchener