A thermodynamic analysis based on the principle of minimising the Gibbs free energy is performed for hydrogen production from glycerol. When the operating parameters such as water/glycerol ratio (WGR), oxygen/glycerol ratio (OGR) and operating temperature (T) are carefully chosen, the energy self-sufficient conditions can be achieved. Two levels of energy self-sufficient, (i) within the reformer and (ii) within the overall system, are considered. Unlike the consideration in the reformer level reported in most works in literature, the consideration in the overall system level represents more realistic results based on the fact that some energy is required for heating up the feeds to a desired operating temperature. The obtained results demonstrate that the maximum hydrogen production significantly decreases from 5.65?mol H2/mol glycerol for the reformer level to 3.31?mol H2/mol glycerol for the system level, emphasising the significant demand of energy for feed preheating. (c) 2011 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering