Freight trucks: a most promising market for hydrogen

IEC  E-tech

Last month a German automotive giant launched a fleet of hydrogen road cars, with its CEO referring to the natural gas (H2) as “the missing piece in the jigsaw when it comes to emission-free mobility.”

However, the market for hydrogen fuelled vehicles is more likely to be driven by heavy-duty road haulage.

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How do hydrogen vehicles work?

Like EVs, hydrogen vehicles emit zero air pollution from the exhaust.  Instead of being powered by electricity stored in a battery, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) produce the electricity on board through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell stack.  Refuelling hydrogen tanks from a pump takes less than five minutes and the range of FCEVs tend to be greater than that of EVs. The new fleet of German made cars for instance can travel 503 Km before refuelling.

There are several barriers to market for FCEVs to overcome if they are to compete with EVs. The cost of the fuel cell alone makes the price of a standard passenger car double that of a comparable EV. Another challenge for hydrogen vehicles is the need to compress the gas to very high pressures in order to get the right density of fuel on board to give you range, explains Brendan Bilton, CTO at a UK-based hydrogen refuelling station operator. “In passenger cars that’s a hell of a challenge. It’s why a lot of car manufacturers are moving to SUV models where there’s more room to package the tanks.”

Battery electric cars face a similar problem but EV batteries are small flat packs that can be distributed all over the car. Hydrogen is stored in large cylinders on board and there are only so many parts of the vehicle you can put them in.Storage space is less of a problem for light commercial and heavy goods vehicles.

Another obstacle is the lack of refuelling infrastructure. There are only around 230 H2 filling stations across the EU and the UK, most of them in Germany. The Clean Energy Partnership, an alliance of German vehicle manufacturers and filling station operators, has pledged to expand Germany’s hydrogen fuelling station network from 100 to 400 stations by 2025 when it will still be a fraction of the country’s 14500 conventional fuel outlets.

“We have a chicken and egg problem with hydrogen fuel cell technology,” explained Axel Rücker, Program Manager Hydrogen Fuel Cell at the German automotive group. “As long as the network of refuelling stations for hydrogen-powered cars is so sparse, the low demand from customers will not allow for profitable mass production of fuel cell vehicles. And as long as there are hardly any hydrogen cars on the roads, the operators will only hesitantly expand their refuelling station network.”

The equation makes more sense for road freight. As major truck makers commit to phasing out diesel by 2040, the greater range and speed of refuelling hydrogen vehicles is an attractive alternative for the road transport industry which often operates long distances round the clock.

“Bigger vehicles pulling heavy loads or with a refrigeration unit or onboard crane for lifting goods becomes a massive challenge for the power capacity of electric batteries. If haulage firms were to switch to EV trucks they would have to completely change their operating model. Hydrogen becomes the only viable zero emission fuel for that sector,” says Bilton.

Haulage drives hydrogen

Networks of H2 refuelling stations are being built targeting this market. Bilton’s company aims to have 30 hydrogen refuelling stations under development this year concentrated on the UK’s 147 truck stops and estimates that it needs about five individual nozzles per truck stop (totalling 800) by 2027 to provide comprehensive national coverage.

“We can put a skeleton network in place with 100 miles between each refuelling station which will give comfort to a haulage company that they can go anywhere on major networks and know they can fill up on a journey when they need to,” he says. “In a vehicle with a range of between 300 and 400 miles, that isn't a problem logistically.”

IEC is paving the way for this form of energy to be widely used for transport. IEC Technical Committee 9 which prepares standards for railway equipment and systems, has recently embarked on the development of a new standard, IEC 63341-1, specifying fuel cells for the propulsion of trains as well as any rolling stock type of transport, including light rail vehicles, tramways and metros. IEC TC 105 develops standards for fuel cells.

And IECEx, the IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Explosive Atmospheres has recently extended its IECEx certification of personnel competence scheme for assessing and certifying individuals working in potentially hazardous areas, to address hydrogen safety by adding one unit of competence – Unit Ex 011 – addressing basic knowledge of the safety of hydrogen systems.

EU supports the hydrogen transition

The EU is backing the hydrogen infrastructure to support the “decarbonization of the European transport sector” and is concentrating on the haulage sector.

A 2020 study by the EU’s Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), declared hydrogen fuel cells were a “very promising zero-emission powertrain solution for the heavy-duty trucking industry.” 

The EU’s public private Clean Hydrogen Partnership also determined that the application of hydrogen fuel cells in long-distance vehicles had “reached a sufficient level of maturity.” In tandem, a coalition of vehicle manufacturers committed to deploy 100,000 fuel cell trucks and 1,500 hydrogen fuelling stations across the EU by 2030.

According to the EU, hydrogen refuelling stations must be accessible at least every 150 Km along the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) car network by 2030. This would create a sufficiently dense network of hydrogen refuelling stations to ensure adequate cross-border connectivity and to support the 60,000 hydrogen lorries the EU expects on its roads by the end of the decade.

Importantly, its projections rely on hydrogen fuel dropping below the current USD 6/kg for production so it will retail at € 2/kg or less at the pumps. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is optimistic hydrogen could cost less than € 1.8 euros per kilogram by 2030.

Bilton agrees, noting that the price of onshore wind and solar is dropping and that the EU can get hydrogen below € 2 a kilo for production (adding in cost for transport and compression at the pumps would at least double that). “If you can get the price of hydrogen down to € 10 per kilo or less that’s where you tip over into the cost per mile being cheaper for H2 than petrol or diesel.”

However, this relates to the cost of ‘green’ hydrogen. This is the type of hydrogen production necessary to achieve sustainability goals but one which is considerably more expensive to produce today than ‘grey’ hydrogen which is generated from fossil fuels.

How green is hydrogen?

About 95 % of all hydrogen fuel today is categorized ‘grey’ and using it to propel vehicles would fatally undermine progress on reducing CO₂ emissions.

‘Green’ hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. This water electrolysis process emits little carbon waste but is energy intensive meaning that to be badged ‘green’ it needs to run off renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro). The total energy balance sheet for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles also has to include the transportation and storage of the gas which is more complex than for petrol or diesel. For example, pipe networks used for methane may have to be upgraded before they are fit for hydrogen, adding cost to infrastructure builds.

Again, IEC Standards can help. IEC TC 31, which prepares standards for equipment used in explosive atmospheres, is looking at the issue. It has set up a hydrogen advisory group to coordinate input from TC 31 and its subcommittees to other relevant technical committees on the topic of hydrogen.

In order to make hydrogen fuel vehicles a viable - and sustainable - alternative to petrol vehicles or even electric ones, the focus must shift to these greener ways to produce hydrogen fuel.