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?

The total number of city buses with alternative drivelines in European Union 27 countries plus the UK, Norway (NO), Iceland (ICE) and Switzerland (EU 27+4) totalled 13,466 units  comprising 6,354 electric buses (excludes trolley buses), 4,022 hybrid-electric buses, 2,883 CNG buses and 207, hydrogen (fuel cell) buses.

Hyzon has delivered its first four heavy-duty Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) to American food distributor, Performance Food Group. With a range of 350 miles (563 km) and an expected refuelling time of 15 minutes, these vehicles will deliver groceries to retail stores in Southern California, USA.

The company has appointed Dr Christian Mohrdieck as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective immediately. Hyzon stated that Mohrdieck will oversee all product commercialisation, specifically focusing on the start of production of its single-stack 200kW Fuel Cell System (FCS), scaling up manufacturing and advancing the company’s R&D operations.

Daimler is currently building a customer trial fleet of five of its Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Trucks (semi-trailer tractors) which will be tested on German roads starting in June 2024. With a focus on long-haul transport applications, the vehicles will offer a payload of 25 tons at a gross combination weight (GCW) of 40 tons.

Isuzu together with partner, Honda, last month began testing a prototype of the Giga Fuel Cell heavy-duty truck on roads in Japan.

Both subsystems are intended for easy integration into prototype and development vehicles, providing some of the necessary electronic components between the fuel cell stack/auxiliary battery and the traction motor.

At the show, Hyvia presented a Renault Master van with fuel cell electric driveline which was converted into a workshop vehicle by Kollé of Santeny.

Throughout 2024, Ballard will supply 100 hydrogen fuel cell engines (FCmove-HD) to power New Flyer’s Xcelsior Charge FC buses in North America. The engines will be produced in Ballard’s Oregon Facility in the U.S.A.

Specific testing will evaluate the electric and thermal performance of the HFC in real-world conditions. Ultimately, this is another step in bringing this product to market.

Hexagon has supplied Ford Trucks with a complete hydrogen fuel storage system for the development of a fuel-cell electric-powered truck (F-Max FCEV) prototype. As a partner in the project, Ford Trucks will develop and deliver the F-Max FCEV, which will operate as part of a larger fleet of zero-emission trucks collecting data from around Europe.

The ‘Nikola Tre’ range of Class 8 fuel cell trucks, which is now in production, will come with two ZF advanced driver assistance systems: ‘OnGuardMAX’ and ‘OnSideALERT’.