Do operators have to choose between reducing emissions and compromising on productivity? Hiringa makes the case for green hydrogen to deliver across the board.

For all the pressures on today’s transport operators, you could be forgiven for feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place.

As operators work to reduce vehicle emissions, the need for greater efficiency is growing.

There’s virtually no room to compromise on productivity; for some operators, this is where decarbonisation doesn’t stack up.

But you don’t have to choose between one or the other. Hydrogen enables transport leaders to meet that dual need for productivity and lower emissions.

This is a key reason why green hydrogen is so well suited for heavy transport.

Hydrogen or BEV?

The future transport fleet will be made up of different technologies, including hydrogen and battery electric vehicles.

A battery electric truck is better suited to lighter, local deliveries, when you can return to the depot to recharge throughout the day or overnight.

But hydrogen allows operators to reduce emissions and maintain efficiency for linehaul, cross-country freight. This is because hydrogen is light and enables ultra-rapid charging.

While many people are familiar with the weight advantages of hydrogen, fewer understand the advantages of charging speed.

Refuelling vs recharging

When a truck is being topped up, it’s off the road until it’s refuelled (or recharged in the case of an electric truck).

While you can schedule a driver’s breaks at the same time to mitigate the lost productivity, the quicker it is to top up, the better.

With green hydrogen, you can usually refuel in 15 to 20 minutes. Fuelling stations are designed specifically for trucks, so there’s no sharing charging space with cars.

For every 100km you drive in a hydrogen fuel-cell truck, refuelling takes three minutes. This is closer to 40 minutes per 100km for a truck battery on a fast charger.

If charging time and range aren’t an issue affecting how the truck is used, then BEVs can perform more economically.

Gas vs grid

The beauty of refuelling with hydrogen is that you can get an extremely fast transfer of gas through a very small nozzle.

At Hiringa’s four hydrogen refuelling stations, you can refuel at the equivalent charge rate of a 3MW to 4MW battery electric mega charger.

To put this into perspective, achieving a similar rate of energy transfer through an electric cable would require a solid copper cable four inches in diameter.

Cost

Just as charging your car at home overnight costs much less than using a rapid charger at a service station, the cost of charging a battery truck is significantly higher at faster speeds.

Hydrogen is different. The speed of the refuel doesn’t impact the cost – it’s down to how much fuel you use.

In New Zealand, the largest publicly available chargers are about 300kW, which will cost you between 85c/kWh and $1.02/ kWh for a charge. Green hydrogen is in this range at about 97c/kWh, but you can refuel at least 10 times quicker.

In that sense, it is the most like-for-like replacement for diesel among the two leading decarbonisation options.

This is why hydrogen is set to play such a prominent role in heavy transport for New Zealand freight companies – because you can cut the carbon and keep the capacity.