Joint statement from H2Accelerate senior decision-makers regarding the scale-up of hydrogen truck and infrastructure deployment in Europe
Since December 2020, the H2Accelerate collaboration has brought together its hydrogen truck OEM and infrastructure provider members to accelerate the uptake of low-carbon hydrogen for trucking in Europe. On the 20th of November 2023, CEOs and senior decision-makers from H2Accelerate participating organisations (bp, Daimler Truck, Iveco Group, Linde, Shell, TotalEnergies, and Volvo Group) convened in Brussels and renewed their commitment to advance the hydrogen truck sector in Europe at the fastest possible pace. This comes at a crucial time in the scale-up of the sector, as organisations and policymakers develop plans to achieve ambitious targets for the decarbonisation of heavy transport using hydrogen, under the Heavy-Duty CO2 Standards and Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation.
Hannah Bryson-Jones, spokesperson for the collaboration, took the opportunity to reflect on the achievements of the collaboration to date:
“It has been three years since the inception of the H2Accelerate collaboration, and in that time, we have achieved several key milestones to drive the much-needed hydrogen trucking sector forward. We are particularly proud of having secured €72m of funding from the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and Connecting Europe Facility to scale-up hydrogen infrastructure and vehicle technology in parallel. Today, we achieved yet another milestone in affirming the commitment of our members to working together to accelerate the next stage of scale-up, with thousands more hydrogen trucks and a European hydrogen refuelling network which is able to meet the requirements of AFIR.”
At the meeting, H2Accelerate members reiterated their recognition of the key role of hydrogen in the heavy-duty transport sector. Stefano Innocenzi, President Region Europe West, Linde, spoke of Linde’s motivation for joining the collaboration in 2021 and its renewed commitment to the collaboration for the future:
“With our global leading expertise in the production and handling of hydrogen, we at Linde see a huge opportunity for us to contribute to large-scale decarbonisation through the delivery of hydrogen fuel to the heavy-duty transport sector. We cannot, however, achieve this alone, which is why in September 2021 we joined the H2Accelerate collaboration to work more closely with other leading players in the sector to drive forward deployment projects and supportive policy frameworks for heavy-duty hydrogen. Today marks a further pace-change in our journey to accelerate the scaling of the sector.”
The ambitions of the H2Accelerate collaboration represents a ground-breaking scale-up in the deployment of hydrogen trucks and infrastructure, and a vital stepping stone towards Europe’s 2030 targets. Gerrit Marx, CEO of Iveco Group, spoke of the valuable work of the collaboration and members.
“Iveco Group has a history of being among the first to hit unchartered territory: we have been pioneers of alternative propulsion for more than twenty years, and the first to launch an electric born heavy-duty fuel cell electric articulated truck. Hydrogen is an exciting energy vector for the sustainable future of heavy-duty vehicles, as this technology offers the best trade-off between autonomy range, payload and refuelling time. We are proud of the work we are doing with our partners in the ground-breaking H2Accelerate collaboration, which makes a tangible contribution for the technical and commercial viability of long-haul hydrogen trucking, using this fuel in fuel cells and internal combustion engines.”
H2Accelerate members used the opportunity to celebrate recent milestones in the development of hydrogen trucks. Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck, highlighted their recent success:
“Daimler Truck joined the H2Accelerate meeting to reinforce our commitment to deploy heavy-duty hydrogen trucks in tandem with the required refuelling infrastructure to meet our customers’ needs. Just recently we have successfully demonstrated with a Record Run over 1,047 km on a single fill of hydrogen that hydrogen fuel-cell technology is the right solution to decarbonize flexible and demanding long-haul road transport. Today’s meeting is exemplary of the action that H2Accelerate is taking to meet the EU’s 2030 decarbonisation targets.”
The CEOs and senior decision-makers discussed at the meeting how cross-collaboration will allow H2Accelerate members to overcome challenges to the hydrogen truck ecosystem. Emma Delaney, Executive Vice President – Customers and Products, bp, emphasized bp’s belief in hydrogen’s potential in decarbonizing the heavy-goods vehicle (HGV) sector and the importance of a continued collaborative approach:
“bp believes hydrogen has the potential to play a critical role in helping support the decarbonization of the heavy-goods vehicle (HGV) sector. Collaborative efforts, such as H2Accelerate, will help enable the scaling up of hydrogen for HGVs safely and efficiently. Today’s gathering offers a unique opportunity to collectively comprehend the challenges this industry has, and the role of companies and government to create a viable commercial ecosystem that will help to enable transportation to decarbonize further.”
At its core, the meeting fostered a collective understanding of the scale of both commitments required and the opportunity to meet the targets of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) and the EU Commission’s targets for the reduction of emissions from heavy-duty vehicles by 2030. Anna Mascolo, Executive Vice President – Low Carbon Solutions, Shell, expressed the value of Shell’s experience in the hydrogen mobility sector and the need for decisive large-scale deployment:
“I am delighted to represent Shell, as one of the founding members, at H2Accelerate’s CEO meeting where senior decision-makers underpin the commitment to fostering the conditions for the market rollout of hydrogen trucks in Europe and to build a truly pan-European network with a Europe-wide coverage of refuelling stations. Shell has been globally active in realizing refuelling stations and enabling a hydrogen mobility market ranging from China to Europe to California: our learnings over many years of trial and error have been diverse in this space, on what works and what doesn’t, and we feel strongly about bringing such learning to the heavy-duty segment and the H2accelerate platform. All parties at H2Accelerate see the need and are committed towards a common ambition of 100s of refuelling stations across Europe by 2030. Let’s get going and make this work now! ”
Infrastructure players and vehicle OEMs agreed in the meeting on the need to create confidence in large-scale investment in reliable pan-European refuelling infrastructure and series production of hydrogen vehicles, emphasizing the need to engage customers in the development of the hydrogen ecosystem.
Thierry Pflimlin, President Marketing & Services, TotalEnergies, highlighted TotalEnergies’ role as a pioneer in hydrogen mobility and its announcements regarding infrastructure deployment:
“Pioneer in hydrogen mobility since 2002, TotalEnergies sees H2Accelerate as a key contributor to the development of hydrogen-based heavy-duty transportation across Europe. With more than 100 heavy-duty hydrogen service stations to be built on the main European corridors, TotalEnergies demonstrates its commitment to drive demand for hydrogen in the transport sector. This heavy-duty network, to be developed in cooperation with Air Liquide, together with our own development of a large-scale low carbon hydrogen production facility, is a strong signal to customers to engage with confidence on the journey to decarbonised transport. We see this H2Accelerate meeting as a key opportunity, after the AFIR and Heavy Duty CO2 standards announcements by European authorities, to share the sense of urgency among H2Accelerate members. We as TotalEnergies are a first mover in the sector and look forward to developing it further.”
The meeting of H2Accelerate CEOs and senior decision-makers signifies a renewed commitment to Phase 2 of H2Accelerate deployment plans ahead of COP28. Martin Lundstedt, President & CEO Volvo Group, spoke of the unique role and responsibility falling to the members of H2Accelerate:
“We are at an important turning point in our sustainable transformation. 2030 is fast approaching. In order to meet our climate targets, that we are all committed to, we must collectively do our part by scaling up hydrogen technologies. Pre-deployment of our hydrogen trucks, both FCEV and H2 ICE, as well as of refuelling stations – are already in progress. Via H2Accelerate, Volvo Group wants to speed up the transition by building the hydrogen ecosystem and sharing the risk with trustworthy global partners. Thanks to a selected and targeted deployment strategy, combined with clever synergies and risk taking, we will build positive business cases and ensure that a sustainable transformation is successful. Who is better than us to secure the green transition?”
Following the meeting, Hannah Bryson-Jones reflected on the next steps for the collaboration:
“As we look to the future, 2030 is not far away and provides challenging targets for the deployment of hydrogen trucks and infrastructure. We are uniquely positioned not only to support our members to achieve these targets, but to create an ecosystem in which other players can participate. Together, we can make hydrogen trucking a reality.”
About H2Accelerate
H2Accelerate is a collaboration agreement signed between the participants under which the participants will work together to:
- seek public support to fund early pre-commercial projects to activate the market on the path towards a mass market roll-out;
- communicate around the technical and commercial viability of hydrogen fuelled trucking at scale; and
- hold discussions with policy makers and regulators to encourage policies which can support a sustainable and speedy activation of the zero emissions long haul trucking market.
You can follow the H2Accelerate collaboration on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/h2accelerate/).
Photos provided by Cédric Puisney photography – https://cedricpuisney.photography/