Many industrial actors in the heavy-duty (HD) transport sector are interested in deploying zero-emission solutions based on hydrogen fuel cells, but their deployment has been hindered for years by the lack of an industry standard defining how to integrate fuel cells in a vehicle. This has caused repeated "re-engineerings of the wheel" as various companies integrated fuel cells from one specific vendor in one specific vehicle.
StasHH provides a standard for the size, connections and communication of a generic fuel-cell module (FCM) that both FCM manufacturers and their customers can use in their design. The standard is designed with focus on European trucks, which were identified as the most difficult application due to their limited available volume, but is applicable to all HD applications, both on land and water.
The StasHH consortium includes many large and influential FCM manufacturers, some based in Europe and some daughter companies of worldwide market leaders, and a wide cross-section of vehicle manufacturers encompassing trucks, buses, trains, construction vehicles, and ships.
While battery cars are gradually becoming more common in Europe, and most major manufacturers have ambitious electrification plans, the HD sector is more difficult to transition to zero-emission propulsion because of the inherent limitations of batteries in terms of weight, capacity and cost. Hydrogen fuel cells can provide zero-emission HD mobility with lower weight, higher capacity and far lower cost for the same stored energy: StasHH aims to kickstart the adoption of fuel cells in the HD sector.
StasHH' objectives are:
1) Reducing the total cost of ownership of fuel cells, which is key in the commercially driven HD sector;
2) Unify the HD markets providing one single standard for trucks, buses, ships, trains, etc.
3) Provide a stackable standard up to the MW scale, to cover even more markets;
4) Ensuring fair competition among fuel-cell suppliers, whose FCMs may be easily swapped for another company's;
5) Reduce the research, development and innovation costs of vehicle manufacturers, who will have clear guidelines on how to install fuel cells in their vehicles;
6) Enable FCM manufacturers to automate their production by reducing the number of models to a few standard sizes, unleashing economies of scale;
7) Improve the supply chain, as defective FCMs may be easily replaced and sent to their factory for repairs, instead of dispatching technicians to every single site.
