Large scale deployment project to accelerate the uptake of Hydrogen Trucks in Europe (H2Accelerate TRUCKS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Clean Hydrogen
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: CLEANH2 (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Norway,Sweden,Switzerland,Netherlands,Denmark,Germany,Romania,Austria,Italy,France,Finland,United Kingdom
Call: Large scale demonstration of European H2 Heavy Duty Vehicle along the TEN-T corridors (HORIZON-JTI-CLEANH2-2022-1, 2022)
Start date: 2023-02-01
End date: 2030-07-31
Duration (months): 90.0
Total project cost (EUR): 128382980.31
EU funding (EUR): 29991488.5
Participants: 24
Project status: SIGNED

125 hydrogen fuel cell trucks from three truck OEMs (Volvo Group, Scania and Hyundai) and one truck retrofitter (Hyliko) will be deployed across six EU member states/associated countries. The truck manufacturers will supply vehicles able to achieve a 400/600 km minimum range between refuels for 350/700 bar storage, respectively. 41-44 tonne articulated trucks will be included among the types of trucks to deploy, covering the longest haul road freight. The trucks will be deployed with over 20 European truck operators and operate in a wide range of conditions and day-to-day operations, across the European member states/associated countries. The trucks will operate on a developing network of hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS), designed specifically for trucks with the help of project Associated Partners, TotalEnergies, Everfuel and TEAL Mobility. This new generation of truck refuelling stations aims to achieve >1000 kg/day of dispensing capacity. These HRS will initially be focused on the regions where the vehicles are manufactured to enable the high level of on-road support that the OEM customers will rely on. Eventual expansions of the HRS network will work towards covering the major TEN-T transport corridors from North to South Europe. Where possible, the stations will be supplied using green hydrogen from a network of electrolysers producing green hydrogen consistent with RED II and RED III requirements, with associated Guarantees of Origin. The project will create an extensive technical, economic and attitudinal dataset which proves the viability of hydrogen as a solution to decarbonising road freight. This will be analysed by research partners, SINTEF, VTT and ERM to create easily interpretable public reports on the performance of the fleet. The results will be disseminated to an audience of (i) policy makers, to encourage policy change to favour hydrogen truck deployment, (ii) truck operators, to enable future uptake, and (iii) the wider hydrogen industry, to underpin supply chain investment. These activities will contribute to accelerating the rate and scale of uptake of hydrogen-powered vehicles in Europe, preparing the policy, fuelling network and end user acceptance for the first series production of these vehicles (at the scale of 100’s per year per truck manufacturer) from as early as 2027 and full industrialisation (1,000’s per year per truck manufacturer) around 2030.

Keywords: hydrogen truck deployment hrs station network