The objective of this paper is to analyze market penetration of fuel cell vehicle(FCV)s under the carbon tax in Japan by an energy system model MARKAL considering life cycle CO2 emissions.

The results of the analysis show that no hydrogen FCV is introduced until 2050 without carbon tax. But as the carbon tax becomes severer, hydrogen FCVs are introduced earlier and more. With considering CO2 emissions at the manufacturing stage based on the life cycle assessment, hydrogen FCVs become less cost-competitive, because CO2 emissions of hydrogen FCVs at the manufacturing stage are more than that of conventional vehicles (Fig.1). Only if carbon tax rate is very high, CO2 emissions affects on the market penetration. This means under the expected carbon tax in Japan, 2400 JPY/t-C (Fig.2), even energy system model MARKAL, which does not connect the market share of vehicles to CO2 emissions at the manufacturing stage, is enough to analyze market penetration of FCVs.

For the analysis, an energy system model of Japan based on MARKAL is used. It covers 65 years from 1988 to 2052 in 13 periods and includes 11 types of passenger vehicles. As their technological characteristics, vehicle efficiency, vehicle cost, life time, etc. in each period are given based on the targets in the hydrogen energy technology development roadmap of Japan. Life cycle assessment of the main vehicles has done based on the present inventory data, emission factors and their projection in the future based on the MARKAL.