Governments around the world are banning commercial diesel and gasoline internal combustion engine trucks. While electric trucks (eTrucks) are the clear path forward, there are a variety of use cases and vehicle availability requirements that affect the best powertrain choices. In fact, the best solutions for a particular application might not involve plugging in at all, according to a recent report by McKinsey and Company.

The report, “Why most eTrucks will choose overnight charging” (October 2020), addresses the charging needs for medium- and heavy-duty electric truck platforms. McKinsey estimates that eTruck adoption will exceed 30 percent by 2030, and this will require the alignment of multiple factors, including regulation, eTruck supply, and electric powertrain, and other technology improvements.

As the world moves toward net-zero carbon in all energy-consuming sectors, the International Energy Agency and many other organizations, countries, and corporations consider hydrogen an essential component of the emerging energy mix and a viable alternative to diesel, the conventional fuel used worldwide for medium- and heavy-duty surface transport.

Hydrogen will play several critical roles in this rapidly evolving transition – as a large-scale energy storage medium, as a low- or zero-carbon energy “currency,” as a feedstock for green steel, and as a transportation fuel.

Nuvera was a proud sponsor and participant in H2 View’s recent Mobility Pillar Special, and our CEO Lucien Robroek was the featured speaker at the March 12 event. “Hydrogen power delivered to vehicles via fuel cell engines is key to achieving a net-zero carbon transportation future, so this topic is a great fit for us,” Lucien said afterwards.

“Mobility is a critical strand of the clean energy transition, with a lot of positive mileage for hydrogen,” as H2 View’s Managing Editor Rob Cockerill, put it. “And we are not just talking about covering distance over land. With hydrogen mobility we are also talking about transport by river, oceans, and air.

“Right now is most definitely the decade of the fuel cell.”

In February, Nuvera announced the expansion of its hydrogen fuel cell engine testing capabilities with the commissioning of the Nuvera® Fuel Cell Engine Test Module (ETM) in Osio, Italy near our offices in Milan. This fully-equipped testing ground is unique in the industry and highlights our ongoing commitment to providing OEMs with the technology needed to build high-performance, zero-emission vehicles.

Our team dedicated significant time and resources to the multi-year effort to design and construct the automated ETM facility. Our aim is to advance the possibilities of hydrogen-powered vehicles as a solution to the zero-emission motive power needs of vehicle manufacturers and their fleet customers.

To explain its significance for our customers, we asked Giampaolo Sibilia, director of Nuvera EU operations, to give a behind-the-scenes look at what the project involved.

Transportation is currently the number one source of global warming pollution in the U.S. and is motivating nationwide efforts to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Carbon-intensive medium- and heavy-duty trucking has come under particular scrutiny because of the disproportionately high impact of diesel usage.

This past year has been transformative for the fuel cell industry, with significant strides made toward reaching clean mobility at a global scale. From this time last year to today, our industry has achieved so much. Today, on National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day, we celebrate the many industry milestones over the past year, and our own achievements here at Nuvera.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and achieve carbon neutrality, tremendous progress has been made in clean energy adoption in recent years, especially for light-duty vehicles. The focus continues to shift toward ambitious climate goals – particularly in the sectors that will have the most impact on meeting them – commercial and industrial vehicles.

Massachusetts (Nuvera headquarter’s home state) has joined 14 other states and the District of Columbia in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to increase the market for zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs). The MOU sets a goal for 100% zero-emission vehicle sales by 2050, and aims to electrify the transportation sector by promoting mass adoption of zero-emission technologies, including battery electric (BEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV).

Tony Taylor and Brian Bowers of the Applications Development Team answered questions about the group's role in enabling successful integration of Nuvera products into customers' applications.

As Nuvera® fuel cell engines are being introduced into vehicle platforms around the world, we asked the Nuvera Applications Development team to describe their role in helping customers incorporate fuel cells into their products.

Advanced Clean Tech News’s latest webinar, “The Electric Future and the Messy Middle,” addressed The North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s (NACFE) recently released Guidance Report. The report dives into the future for today’s trucking fleets and the challenges that fleet operators face during the inevitable transition to zero-emission propulsion.

The trucking industry is at the start of significant expected changes in powertrains. The imperatives for reducing emissions from the transportation sector – the largest source of carbon emissions worldwide – are mounting, whether from regulatory actions or from the demands of community residents most directly impacted by trucks operating in their vicinity. Fleets can be configured with a growing array of low-carbon energy sources and propulsion technologies, including renewable natural gas and biofuels, diesel-electric hybrids, batteries, and not least, hydrogen fuel cells.

In pre-commercial trials, fuel cell trucks are showing promise as a one-to-one replacement for diesel-powered trucks – both in terms of vehicle performance and in operational characteristics.

Matt Weig, Fuel Cell Engine Product Development Manager

As we launch the Nuvera® E-45 fuel cell engine for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle applications, we wanted to look back at how we arrived at this moment. Nuvera has been at the forefront of the fuel cell industry for over 20 years. Throughout that time, we have always believed that hydrogen represents the future of energy for mobility, and we have worked hard to develop unique technology that makes the use of hydrogen make financial and environmental sense for commercial operations. As governments around the world begin restricting the use of internal combustion engines and diesel fuel, it’s exciting to see how quickly the use of hydrogen fuel cells for zero-emission transportation has come to the forefront of consideration by fleet operators of all kinds.

This past November, the Fuel Cell Seminar and Energy Exposition (FCS&EE) was back in full swing with a sense of excitement for the state of the industry. The Long Beach Convention Center was an excellent venue for showcasing the uses of fuel cells in some of the most demanding industrial and commercial applications, including several major projects at the San Pedro Bay Ports involving the replacement of diesel equipment with hydrogen fuel cells. 

This year, there was a major shift in the tenor of the event, with near-unanimous agreement regarding the viability of fuel cell electric vehicles across the spectrum of classes and uses. Numerous recent strides in the industry allowed participants to focus on how—and not if—fuel cells will become a foundational part of our clean energy future.

Activity around new energy options to power equipment at ports is accelerating, and these first steps and use cases are showing what’s possible using hydrogen at scale.

An international workshop on the status of hydrogen and fuel cells for ports and maritime applications was held in San Francisco in September 2019. H2@Ports was convened by the U.S. Department of Energy Fuel Cell Technologies Office (FCTO), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration and the European Commission Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking.

Unprecedented global demand for clean transportation systems is putting a spotlight on the fuel cell industry. It’s becoming clear that the possibilities for achieving widespread fuel cell vehicle are limitless. This is true for virtually every mode of transportation – commercial, industrial, light-duty – including non-road sectors such as marine, aviation and rail. As the fuel cell industry transforms and expands, it is positively impacting everything from environmental progress and sustainability to the well-being of communities to the bottom line of logistics companies, transit agencies and port operations.

In other words, there is a lot to celebrate! And it just so happens that now is the perfect time.

Eleven cities in Germany are among the most recent to join Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and Athens to ban diesel engine vehicles. In the US, cities and states are setting ambitious goals to fight global warming. EU countries have agreed to cut truck and bus CO₂ emissions 30% by 2030. Japan, Korea and China have all adopted aggressive regulatory policies for combustion engines.

In every sector, OEMs are electrifying vehicle powertrains. To achieve commercial success and to comply with expanding regulatory requirements, OEMs must offer customers zero-emission options that perform as well as – or better than – today’s vehicles do, and be as practical to own and operate.

The role that hydrogen and fuel cells are playing in transforming the transportation sector was a major theme at several international gatherings in Vancouver, British Columbia in recent weeks. Vehicle OEMs, fuel cell suppliers, on- and off-road fleet operators and others gathered on May 22-24, 2019 for The Impulse Summit for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, also known as f-cell + HFC.  This well-known conference and trade fair features speakers from around the world and showcases the latest developments in the fuel cell industry through technical panels, keynote addresses, product exhibitions and workshops.

At this year’s f-cell + HFC event in Canada, Nuvera co-hosted a workshop highlighting the use of fuel cells for seaports and shipping. As we have discussed in previous blogs, ports around the world are concentrated sources of greenhouse gas emissions and criteria pollutants. Not surprisingly, policy-makers, community and environmental groups, as well as port authorities themselves, are recognizing that ports can play a significant role in improving local air quality by reducing their use of diesel fuel – and by making their operations more efficient and less costly through equipment electrification.