Hydrogen Filling Station UK Network Development
Two hydrogen pumps are included in plans for a service station development submitted by the forecourt dealer group Euro Garages to Aberdeenshire Council. The company has applied for planning permission for a service station adjacent to the A90 comprising a petrol filling station, EV charging and hydrogen refuelling.
A planning statement with the application states that the hydrogen refuelling station will be supplied by Element 2, a UK company aiming to develop a network of hydrogen refuelling stations across the UK. The statement adds: “Element 2 see the application site as being a strategic location for the provision of a hydrogen refuelling station as it is located on the main road transport route from the central belt to the north-east of Scotland, passing through the major cities of Dundee and Aberdeen. This will be one of a few hydrogen refuelling stations in the UK that can serve both HGVs and cars….The refuelling area will comprise two refuelling bays located under a canopy, accommodating two vehicles, with space behind the bays for additional queueing vehicles.”
The new site in Aberdeenshire follows the Euro Garage group’s investment of £25m in a UK company developing a hydrogen fuel cell heavy goods vehicle (HGV) in October of last year. HVS (Hydrogen Vehicle Systems Ltd) has already completed its first hydrogen medium commercial vehicle (MCV) prototype and is well underway in developing its second flagship HGV.
The two companies said they aim to advance the UK government’s declaration to become the first country in the world to commit to phasing out new non-zero emission HGVs. With their partnership, they said, EG Group has the potential to provide hydrogen refuelling infrastructure nationwide. At the same time, HVS offers zero-emission freight vehicles, working together to bring hydrogen to the market.
EG Group initially invested £5m into HVS in 2021 and has now injected a further £25m.
The UK Hydrogen Refuelling Market
There are currently 15 hydrogen filling stations in the UK. An earlier government and industry forecast estimated there would be 65 refuelling stations in Britain by 2020, a plan that has not been met. However, there have been some developments in recent months that have highlighted a more confident and expansionist mood for hydrogen enthusiasts.
The UK will have a nationwide network of hydrogen refuelling stations operational at the end of this year as plans by British start-up Element 2 take effect. The initial push is to service heavy trucks and light commercial vehicles, but private cars like the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo and the new BMW iX5 Hydrogen will be able to use Element 2’s pumping technology.
Trucks and buses are the number-one priority for Element 2’s hydrogen because the 600,000 trucks operating daily in the UK contribute 18% to road transport emissions. There’s also a better business case for refuelling stations focused on trucks and buses since a truck typically consumes 50kg of hydrogen per day, a bus 20kg and a car just 1kg. Given that 1kg of hydrogen costs £15, including 20% VAT (but no fuel duty), just 1,000 trucks moving to hydrogen will generate £750,000 of revenue per day.
So far, Element 2 has made rapid progress with £6.5 million of investment, but two further funding rounds totalling £100m are planned for this year. Ultimately, investment is likely to hit £1 billion by 2027.
The hydrogen fuel cell has been tomorrow’s technology since the mid-1990s, but Carbon Zero policies have accelerated their introduction in heavy trucks, soon to be followed in light commercial vans and pick-ups.
“From all we hear from operators, about 30% of operations, mainly urban work, can be met by battery-electric haulage. For other operations, it’s the fuel cell that can replace the internal combustion engine,” said Brendan Bilton, chief technology officer at Element 2.
Element 2 is concentrating its network on the UK’s 147 truck stops to fulfil this emerging demand. It estimates it needs 800 individual nozzles – about five per truck stop – by 2027 to provide comprehensive national coverage. Last July, it announced its first two sites with planning permission approved, one at Coneygarth on the A1 near Northallerton and a second on the M6 near Carlisle.
At its truck-stop sites, the hydrogen pumps will be located on their forecourts, away from petrol/diesel areas. They will be fed by 40-foot-long compressed-gas tanker trailers towed from a central depot. Element 2 has a hydrogen supply contract with chemicals giant Ineos from its Runcorn plant on Merseyside.
I have a diesel CRV, but would love to own a hydrogen powered one. How far would 1kg of hydrogen get me?
50-60 miles. 1 kg of hydrogen = 33kWh of energy. Fuel cell converts that energy to about 16kWh of electrical energy for drivetrain. That will get you 50-60 miles. Saw H2 at EUR 9.80 / kg recently. That is 16 cents or about 14p per mile. I charge overnight at 7.5p per kWh or 2.4p per mile. Hydrogen is nearly 6x more expensive. And less convenient 98% of the time!
Bs. Hydrogen is a future
No its not, 98% of hydrogen is made with fossil fuel , this explains why its being pushed, to slow the switch away from fossil fuels !
Hydrogen can be extracted three ways:
Grey: Extracted from fossil gas; Blue: Extracted from fossil gas before CO2 emissions are trapped and stored; or the new but cheaper and more likely to be used more, Green: which is extracted from water using renewable electricity and releasing oxygen in to the atmosphere. So while most hydrogen is released via fossil gas, the hydrogen in cars can be extracted cleanly.
A network of hydrogen refuelling stations would be good but we need to learn lessons from history. Twenty years ago forecourts were investing in LPG pumps but for various reasons, including lack of government support, LPG has now almost been phased out despite it being a more environmentally friendly fuel compared to petrol and diesel.
The government had nothing to do with the demise of LPG, it needed two things, more support from the fuel companies in providing filling stations and car manufacturers making lpg cars, both were waiting for each other to generate the demand. Pretty much all lpg cars in the uk were converted from petrol, diesels can not be converted and it excluded all new cars as converting them would have made the warranty invalid. Chicken and egg game really, which is where we will be with hydrogen in all likelihood. .
The future for road transport must be hydrogen hybrids, cars with both hydrogen refuelling and plug-in capability. Most mileage can be achieved on batteries, sized for say 80-100 miles, with a hydrogen tank and fuel cell sized to replenish the battery real-time while on longer journeys. Captures the efficiency of electricity and the flexibility of hydrogen. The government should abide by the 2030 deadline for the end of petrol/diesels, but only replace the plug-in petrol hybrids until we have a working hydrogen network, which should be spawned from the UK’s Industrial clusters endorsed over the last few months.
A similar solution, a hybrid heat pump will bring similar efficiency/flexibility benefits to home heating…
Ok Hydrogen is the fuel of the future the price will drop dramatically with using unused renewable energy capacity. The big problem now is like electric cars the infrastructure is not there to support, hydrogen powered vehicles. One thing that will help, is being able to convert diesel engines. to run on hydrogen which is now being done. Scotland is in the forefront of producing hydrogen as a fuel for domestic fuel heating this is all being driven by private industry. It is more than likely that when a big company like BP step into the market, things will speed up considerably. All you need is sea water for the electroless prosses and all excess renewable energy to be used to produce hydrogen. It’s a no brainer and will make the UK a truly independent country. Battery cars are unsustainable unless the graphene aluminium ion batteries start to be mass produced. Even so, for large commercial vehicles and public transport Hydrogen ticks all the boxes. This country is on the cusp of being truly power independent with wind, solar, and tidal. All we must do is have political cross-party cooperation, the will of the people and British industry to achieve this.
I think the future will be a mix of technologies, and different technologies will be applicable to different sectors. As you say for commercial and public transport hydrogen can work well as it requires less investment in infrastructure. We’re still nowhere near power independent though, 40% of our energy still comes from fossil fuel, until we get rid of that hydrogen production by electrolysis at a commercially economic price is a far off dream. Currently 98% of hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of oil or gas and uses huge amounts of electricity