Joint Agency Staff Report on Assembly Bill 8: 2018 Annual Assessment of Time and Cost Needed to Attain 100 Hydrogen Refueling Stations in California

The Joint Agency Staff Report on Assembly Bill 8: 2018 Annual Assessment of Time and Cost Needed to Attain 100 Hydrogen Refueling Stations in California (2018 Joint Report) is in accordance with Assembly Bill 8 (AB 8) (Perea, Chapter 401, Statutes of 2013). The 2018 Joint Report contains time and cost assessments for the network of publicly available hydrogen refueling stations to support the fuel cell electric vehicle market under the California Energy Commission’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program (ARFVTP).

As of December 21, 2018, 38 ARFVTP-funded retail stations selling hydrogen as a transportation fuel to the public, and another 26 stations are in development to become open retail, in California. The ARFVTP funded these 64 stations, which meet nearly two-thirds of the 100-station AB 8 milestone.

California has more than 5,000 fuel cell electric vehicles on its roads, and projections show more than 47,200 fuel cell electric vehicles by 2024 with estimated emissions reductions from these vehicles at nearly 76,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2024. ARFVTP has invested nearly $120 million, since 2010, to fund and support 64 hydrogen refueling stations to support the increasing FCEV market. The entire remaining hydrogen allocation of $20 million per year through the end of the AB 8 program remains needed to support economies of scale in station design and equipment to reach the 100-station goal by 2024. ARFVTP funding remains necessary to reach the established milestone of designing, constructing, and operating at least 100 hydrogen refueling stations by 2024, and to get on track to possibly reach the goal of 200 stations by 2025 established in 2018 by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s Executive Order B-48-18.