WP1 ensures the overall management and coordination of the work undertaken in the ESCALATE project, including the scientific, administrative, contractual and financial issues, within 5 main Tasks. During these first 18 months, project coordination including contractual management was carried out. The financial and administrative aspects were monitored by ensuring the technical progress of the project and detecting any misallocation of resources. Technical and scientific management.
WP2 Baseline Assessment, Requirements, and Pilot Elicitation (WP2) was co-led by the University of Surrey (USR) and MBT. Regular monthly WP2 meetings were held and on demand ad-hoc meetings were occasionally held by task leaders. WP2 contains four tasks which all have been successfully carried out.
During this first reporting period, significant progress has been made on WP3 on the evaluation of modular fuel cell and hydrogen storage systems. A lumped fuel cell system (FCS) model with a modular architecture was developed. The model aims to facilitate assessment of modular balance-of-plant (BOP) concepts to simplify the scaling of the FCS in the range of 100-300 kW while maintaining commonality in the air path components. This approach is expected to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) through economies of scale in the BOP supply chain and improve fuel economy by reducing parasitic loads. Meanwhile, the focus has been on developing advanced simulation models and optimization algorithms for fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) systems, specifically addressing financial and performance-related challenges.
Key Activities and Achievements:
WP4 , Refuelling & Grid-friendly Charging Solutions, target has been to develop and define innovative refuelling and grid- and user-friendly charging solutions for drivers and operators of heavy-duty vehicles (HDV). Charging and hydrogen refuelling interfaces and protocols have been studied and developed, especially taking into account the ESCALATE pilots. The goal is to boost the adoption of the electric trucks by the logistic companies. The situation presented in this report is at the project midterm. The main target is to provide methods and solutions for the hydrogen refuelling and fast charging for the ESCALATE pilots. 3 tasks have been active during the reporting period.
WP5 , on Digital Twin & AI based Managerial Tools, outlined the requirements, specifications, and architectural design for modular digital twins. Based on a high-level architecture a unified system architecture for digital twins was designed and implemented for each PILOTs. The digital twin models, along with their submodels, cloud infrastructure and services are in final stage in conjunction with the hardware for the bidirectional data link between the real demonstrator and the cloud. AI-powered predictive maintenance of specific components of the b-HDVs and F-HDVs and a trustworthy fleet management tool play a decisive role in services. The development of a graphical user interface (GUI) for real-time data visualization and integration of various data sources conclude the work ofWP5.
WP7 on, LCA, TCO, Business Models & Impact Assessment, consists of 6 tasks; 4 tasks have already started. The activities started in M04 and focused on the platform for the environmental and the socio-economic assessment and on the standardization landscape.
WP7 encompasses a series of interconnected tasks aimed at assessing and enhancing the socio-economic and environmental impacts of zero-emission technologies. Through comprehensive analyses and strategic planning, these tasks support the project's goals of promoting sustainable and economically viable solutions for the transportation sector.
The Dissemination & Communication & Exploitation (D&C&E) plan, which outlined our approach and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the project, was the first deliverable we drafted and submitted. We simultaneously produced dissemination and communication materials (logo, leaflet, roll-up, video, etc.) and our primary communication channels accounts (LinkedIn and X).
