Delegates of Hydrogen UK’s annual conference, held at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham on 12 March, left the event with no doubts about the future of the burgeoning hydrogen economy. Opening the conference, Clare Jackson, CEO of Hydrogen UK, declared that “net zero is not possible without hydrogen”. The burning question is, will the UK have any significant part in its development?

Starting later this year, with a proposed finish date of 2029, the two doctoral students will aid Volvo in developing the internal combustion engine with hydrogen as a fuel.

It appears that the upgrades at the plant are meant to prepare it for the eventual development of Cummins’ fuel-agnostic engine platform, a series of engines designed to run on fuels such as natural gas and hydrogen and derived from a common base engine.

The prototype truck, which hauled a full trailer in the Swedish town of Älmhult, was installed with Westport’s ‘H2 HPDI’, a high-pressure direct injection system which allows an internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen.

The truck was driven by an internal combustion engine fitted with Westport’s ‘H2 HPDI’ system, which enables it to run optimally with hydrogen fuel instead of diesel.

The company this week presents its BP95E battery as it makes its European bus debut at Busworld Europe (7 – 12 October in Brussels), stand number 775 – Hall 7.

The new injector design has two iterations: a high-pressure direct injector capable of fuelling applications from 25 to 200 kW per cylinder; and a high-flow port injector capable of “very high” gaseous fuel flow rates.

The intention is to market Terex Advance Commander Series trucks with diesel and hydrogen engine options once series production of the Cummins ‘X15H’ begins as planned in the latter part of this decade.

About the retrofit of the H2 ICE engine, Lord Bamford, JCB Chairman, said: “We have retrofitted this vehicle with a JCB hydrogen engine to demonstrate how simple it will be to convert existing vans and to show that it is not only construction and agricultural machines that can be powered by hydrogen. While converting vans will not be for JCB to do, it does prove there is something else other than batteries that can work very effectively.”

Representing an investment of approximately USD170m, the 200,000-square-foot plant will produce up to 100,000 high-pressure hydrogen vessels annually when it is completed.

At the company’s East Asia Research & Development Centre, the upcoming ‘X15H’ engine was presented alongside Meritor axles, aftertreatment systems, and ‘Endurant’ transmissions.

Under the agreement, charging stations for Commercial Vehicles (CVs) will be placed every 120km along the EU’s main highways by 2028, whilst hydrogen refuelling stations will be installed at least every 200km by 2031.