An Intelligent Site Selection Model for Hydrogen Refueling Stations Based on Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation and Artificial Neural Network—A Case Study of Shanghai

Abstract

With the gradual popularization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), the construction and planning of hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) are increasingly important. Taking operational HRSs in China’s coastal and major cities as examples, we consider the main factors affecting the site selection of HRSs in China from the three aspects of economy, technology and society to establish a site selection evaluation system for hydrogen refueling stations and determine the weight of each index through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Then, combined with fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) method and artificial neural network model (ANN), FCE method is used to evaluate HRS in operation in China’s coastal areas and major cities, and we used the resulting data obtained from the comprehensive evaluation as the training data to train the neural network. So, an intelligent site selection model for HRSs based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation and artificial neural network model (FCE-ANN) is proposed. The planned HRSs in Shanghai are evaluated, and an optimal site selection of the HRS is obtained. The results show that the optimal HRSs site selected by the FCE-ANN model is consistent with the site selection obtained by the FCE method, and the accuracy of the FCE-ANN model is verified. The findings of this study may provide some guidelines for policy makers in planning the hydrogen refueling stations.