Although hydrogen power networks in Scotland are still in the very early stages, Element 2's current trials with major bus operators have proven this clean form of energy can go the distance when it comes to transport. By Andrew Collier
Hydrogen is set to be the next big thing in the sustainable transport revolution. It is unlikely to make much of a dent in the market for electric vehicles (EVs) in the near future, but it is set to be the main fuel of choice for heavier forms of transport.
Unlike electricity, but like petrol and diesel, hydrogen is a fuel existing in physical form, so it will have to be pumped in and carried round in a tank. That means a supply network has to be rolled out across the country.
At present, this is at a very early stage, but putting this infrastructure in place will be vital in order to create the supply chain. However, with the technology yet to take off, investing in this now requires boldness and imagination.
One company already establishing itself as an early leader in the field is Element 2, a business based in Skipton, North Yorkshire. It sees Scotland as an important hydrogen fuel market and is currently conducting trials with the bus operator Stagecoach in Inverness and Oban.
“Scotland is ideal for hydrogen powered vehicles”, explains Tim Harper, Element 2’s CEO and a former engineer for the European Space Agency (ESA). “It has a combination of steep hills, cold weather and long distances to travel, and these are things you just can’t address with current electric battery technology.”
The future for hydrogen as a fuel is extremely promising, he believes. “People have been interested in it for a long time and the potential has always been there. However, up until recently, we have had other perfectly good sources, so it has been something of a nice-to-have solution rather than a must-have one.
“However, with the rise of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments and the move to net zero suddenly decarbonising everything, it’s something people now want to make use of.”
While he was working at the ESA on projects involving the use of propellants for rocket launch, Mr Harper discussed the possibilities of hydrogen with Element 2’s Co-founder and now Chief Technology Officer, Brendan Bilton.
“We got talking about hydrogen and my sense - this was a couple of years ago - was that it had been around for a while and a lot of the technologies already existed. So I wondered if it was the right time and if the opportunity was there.
“When we looked at the market, it seemed everyone was sitting around waiting for somebody to do something. The trick was to find out what that something was and try and figure out if there was a business there.”
He realised that new ways of producing hydrogen were being explored and at the same time the transport industry was examining its use, either for pure combustion or to use in fuel cells.
Mr Harper and Mr Bilton came to discover that no-one was building the infrastructure needed for transport of hydrogen to filling stations because the demand was not yet there.
“We realised that there wouldn’t be a market for hydrogen powered vehicles unless there was a sufficiently good network of places where you could fill up.
“When we started, there were only about a dozen refuelling stations in the UK and half of those didn’t seem to work very well. We recognised we would have to build out the network slightly ahead of demand or that demand wouldn’t materialise.”
Some of the company’s new refilling points will be co-located with existing traditional filling stations while others will be in bus and freight depots, where vehicles will be refuell/ed when they return to base.
“We’re going to be doing it right across the UK, though the major interest is in Scotland. As it has lots of renewable energy available [to produce the hydrogen], it seems to be taking a real lead in this. It’s where more than half our operations and contracts currently are.”
Why is this the case? “There’s quite strong financial and political support for the move. Scots have realised that with their wind and tidal energy, hydrogen could be a very useful energy vector in storing power.”
In advance of the network being built out, Element 2 is currently using mobile refuellers to supply its clients, who are mainly local authorities and transport partnerships as well as an increasing number of logistics companies.
“The logistics sector has been looking for a solution in order to decarbonise its freight for a long time. A number of companies have taken the decision to go with hydrogen and I think that over the coming years we will see increasing numbers of HGVs chugging up the A9 and M74.”
Element 2 does not manufacture its own hydrogen, preferring to source it from others. “I really wanted to do something about climate change now, so I didn’t want to have to invent something. I wanted to be able to use everything off the shelf, integrate existing components and hit the road running.”
Mr Harper points out that a number of different types of hydrogen are available, some produced in a more environmentally sustainable way than others. “We’ll be agnostic initially about the cost of hydrogen, but we have to get it green as quickly as possible.
“We think that by the time demand ramps up - and a lot of assets will be coming online over the next one to three years - there will be sufficient green hydrogen to supply the transport industry across the UK.”
The aim is to have the first 45 hydrogen refuelling stations up and running by the end of 2022, with the number rising to 800 within four years of that date.
Tim Harper says that this will not necessarily need a huge amount of capital investment.
“Our strategy is to go with a modular system. That means starting off with one pump and as demand picks up you add others.
“By doing that, we don’t have a whole filling station capable of dispensing tonnes of hydrogen a day sitting there waiting for the next vehicle to come up and just take five kilos.
“Also, because we’re transporting the hydrogen in, we will have a variety of different sources, so that builds in quite a bit of resilience. The supply of green hydrogen is a bit patchy at the moment, though it won’t be in a year or two’s time.”
He continues: “We don’t want to get into the business of producing hydrogen because a lot of people will be doing that.
“Also, we are seeing that as interest ramps up, there are all kinds of new and different ways of producing and storing it coming onto the market.
“The last thing we want is to buy a huge bit of kit and then by the time we have it installed and commissioned we then realise we can get the same thing from China at a quarter of the price.”
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Heavy vehicles will run on hydrogen ‘within five to seven years’
IT seems that you can have hydrogen in any colour you like. Of course, as a gas it’s actually invisible and colourless: the different names refer to how it is produced.
The main types are grey, blue and green, although pink, yellow and turquoise are available as well.
Hydrogen can be produced from a number of sources including nuclear energy, fossil fuels, biomass and renewables. Grey hydrogen is currently the most common and is generated from natural gas.
Blue hydrogen is lower - though not zero - carbon: the CO2 generated in the production process is stored underground through carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Green hydrogen is currently the most sustainable of all and the form most likely to be in demand in the immediate future. It currently comprises only about 0.1 per cent of total production, but this is expected to ramp up substantially in the near future.
This green form is the only one at present produced in a genuinely carbon neutral way and is set to play a vital part in the transition to net zero.
It is made by using surplus renewable energy, taking solar or wind power and splitting it into one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms in a process known as electrolysis.
It is a particularly efficient way of creating hydrogen as renewables generation tends to go through peak cycles - its production could be a highly effective way of using this power during these cycles. In time, Tim Harper says, this will be the type of choice.
“Certainly for our applications, everything will go green.”
He believes that the majority of heavy vehicle fleets will be running on hydrogen within five to seven years. “I think one of the things that will drive that transition is that the residual value of diesel vehicles after that is going to be extremely low.”
Freight and other companies will also be under pressure to make the change, he says.
“They will be getting it from both ends. One one hand, you will have the institutional investors saying they are not going to support lorries spewing out diesel fumes up and down the motorways.
“On the other hand, the supermarkets will want everyone to be cleaner and greener and no business is going to be the last one using diesel. There will be a tipping point where suddenly everyone will make the change.”
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