Economic comparison of fuel cell powered forklifts to battery powered forklifts

This paper presents an economic comparison of fuel cell powered forklifts to various types of battery powered forklifts. The total costs of ownership of each technology is calculated and compared over their economic lifetimes and at varying workloads to determine the economic costs or benefits associated with each technology. The study is novel compared to the previous literature in that all data sources are referenced, it includes a model that is scalable by facility workload, and it includes the economic costs of hydrogen storage and charging infrastructure. Results show that fuel cell forklifts are more expensive to purchase and operate that battery powered forklifts for the types of facilities considered in this analysis. Fast charge forklifts are shown to be economically advantaged at high workloads relative to conventional battery-swapping forklifts. Copyright (c) 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.