Best-in-class low-cost mobile hydrogen refueller for a zero-emission transportation sector

Project Information

MOBHYLE

Grant agreement ID: 968107

DOI

10.3030/968107

Project closed

EC signature date 3 February 2021

Start date 1 April 2021

End date 30 April 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 3 547 975,00

EU contribution

€ 2 478 332,50

Coordinated by

NANOSUN LIMITED
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MOBHYLE (Best-in-class low-cost mobile hydrogen refueller for a zero-emission transportation sector)

Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2024-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

If the EU wishes to accomplish a clean energy transition to achieve its sustainability goals, it will, inter alia, require hydrogen at large scale. Transportation is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for ~25% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.
In transport, hydrogen is the most promising option for decarbonising heavy-duty vehicles such as trucks and buses; but the current prohibitive cost of refuelling infrastructure urgently calls for a paradigm shift in solution design. In response, NanoSUN has reinvented the hydrogen refuelling station to accelerate the adoption of hydrogen in transport, thereby helping to address at least four of the EU’s sustainability goals within the Green Deal.
NanoSUN’s solution is called the Pioneer™ station. It addresses the bottlenecks in the adoption of hydrogen in key transportation sectors. It eliminates complex and costly onboard compressors, uses field-proven cascade technology and is built into standard shipping containers for mobility. It is half the costs of alternatives and highly scalable. The market opportunity for NanoSUN is ~€2.3 billion of refuelling equipment for every 1% of heavy-duty vehicles that switch to hydrogen fuel. The first 1% penetration is expected to be achieved by 2030, meaning that NanoSUN’s annual addressable market will reach €140 million by 2025 and increase quickly thereafter. NanoSUN will leverage first-mover and cost-leadership advantages in mobile refuelling to capture significant early share. We have demonstrated market demand through obtaining early sponsorship from Shell and support from other fuel giants like Westfalen and BOC. NanoSUN has also taken multiple customer orders for Pioneer™ stations which have been delivered since early 2023 and continues to receive high levels of customer enquiries and a well-established brand recognition in the UK and parts of Europe.
NanoSUN utilised the EIC funding to build the first Pioneer™ stations and a loading station to enable field trials across Europe, with real-world customers, to demonstrate the benefits and accelerate the adoption of hydrogen in transport.

The superior energy density of hydrogen means it is a more compelling solution for decarbonizing heavy duty vehicles than battery electric, but the high cost and complexity of refuelling infrastructure solutions is a significant barrier to adoption. NanoSUN’s solution to this challenge is the PioneerTM Mobile Hydrogen Refuelling Station (PioneerTM Station). PioneerTM integrates NanoSUN’s proprietary cascade refuelling and dispense technology with industry standard high-pressure storage modules in 6-meter (20-feet) or 12-meter (40-feet) intermodal (ISO) containers. The value chain that PioneerTM enables offers the path to lowest total cost for hydrogen fuel, and enables a fast, flexible and scalable solution for fleet operators. It is aligned with activities in other fields to reduce the cost of green hydrogen production, such as electrolyser technology.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed has been a culmination of undertaking 5 work packages: -
• Work Package 1 - Project Management
• Work Package 2 - PioneerTM Base Station Development
• Work package 3 - Field Trials
• Work Package 4 - Design Evolution to incorporate learnings from Field Trial
• Work Package 5 - Ethics requirements

The project specifically targets field trials of a hydrogen refuelling network based on PioneerTM mobile hydrogen refuelling stations in various heavy duty vehicle segments:
· Trial 1 - Using a 300 bar PioneerTM, with Westfalen in Germany, servicing buses.
· Trial 2 - Using a 400 bar PioneerTM, with Westfalen in Germany, servicing buses.
· Trial 3 - Using a 400 bar PioneerTM, with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in the U.K servicing a plane.

The field trials helped NanoSUN to identify critical areas of improvement, particularly in mechanical robustness and control logic to handle real-world operational variances. Better understand the required integration between Pioneer's safety systems and filling stations and the opportunity to test the systems efficiencies and adaptations required under increased pressure scenarios, providing valuable insights into pressure management and system stability. The field trials also allowed us to showcase PioneerTM in a unique test environment, operating in an aviation context. Showing the Pioneer's versatility in adapting to different vehicle types and refuelling environments.
As a result of the field trials we were able to take the lessons learnt and move into a design evolution and optimisation phase that stabilised the PioneerTM mechanical and software design, enhanced the sales and marketing plan and allowed NanoSUN to begin to develop a Next Generation Product, which was also shared as results of the project by dissemination.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

There is growing consensus that achieving the levels of cost needed for mass adoption will require Hydrogen production at scale. Supporting evidence for this is that many of the largest global electrolyser manufacturers (e.g. ITM Power) are no longer quoting for units smaller than 0.5 MW (~250 kg/day). At the other end of the scale, multiple projects are underway involving electrolyser schemes at >10 MW scale. A renewable energy consortium has just announced a project in development to produce 50,000 60,000 kgs per day of green hydrogen in Rotterdam by 2023 in a 200 MW electrolyser mega project8. PioneerTM is an example of an emerging trend in hydrogen refuelling: mobile hydrogen stations. These fit very well with the need to distribute hydrogen from a large centralised production plant. They enable quick setup of trials for new fleets and maximise the serviceable area for each production node. What distinguishes PioneerTM stations in this category of equipment is focus on low capital cost and low operational cost, as well as ease of deployment, given they are compressor free and therefore do not require an industrial power supply to be present to the refuelling sites..
Other approaches to mobile refuelling, have largely focused on modularising and mobilising much of the functionality of a conventional fixed HRS, with compression and sometimes precooling of the hydrogen at the dispensing site. This approach fails to address the issues of cost and reliability and also put significant responsibility on the end user to have an adequate industrial power supply available. In contrast, Pioneer™ station’s innovative, trailer mounted, design removes all rotating machines, pumps, compressors etc. making the station deployable almost anywhere and truly mobile, taking just 30 minutes to start up and be ready to refuel.
As well as helping to speed up the transition to hydrogen as a fuel in the highway mobility sector a clear, long-term future for this technology will be in supporting the decarbonisation of off-highway equipment. Non road mobile machinery (NRMM), such as construction equipment and static off-highway equipment such as diesel generators, currently have fuel brought to them. Battery technology has clear limitations in this heavy-duty sector, and we see companies such as JCB and Liebherr developing hydrogen ICE engines and equipment. Low power, cascade mobile hydrogen refuelling technology, such as that proven with the Pioneer™ will allow fuel to be brought to the equipment and facility a refuelling and operational experience much more akin to diesel, that battery solutions.
 

Render of a Pioneer™ Mobile Hydrogen Refuelling Station.

Deployment of a Pioneer™ Station refuelling buses in Germany.

Graphic depicting the usage model: Hydrogen Production, Preparation, Distribution, Consumption, and

Render of a Pioneer™ Mobile Hydrogen Refuelling Station, showing internal view.

Image of a Pioneer™ Station refuelling an Aircraft in the UK.