The WSHA aims to help with H2 heavy duty vehicle deployment in that part of the country.
Hydrogen fuel cell industry members have formally announced the formation of a new alliance. It’s called the Western States Hydrogen Alliance (WSHA). Its goal is to effect rapid deployment of zero-emission H2-powered trucks, locomotives, buses, aircraft, aquatic vessels and off-road equipment.
The WSHA is composed of leading heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell industry leaders.
The WHSA will focus on rapidly increasing fuel cell industry vehicle development and deployment. This includes heavy duty fuel cell electric technology over several commercial sectors in 13 states in the western US.
“Hydrogen fuel cells will power the future of zero-emission mobility in these heavy-duty, hard to electrify sectors. That fact is indisputable. This new alliance exists to ensure government and industry can work efficiently together to accelerate the coming of this revolution,” said Roxana Bekemohammadi, WSHA executive director.
The WSHA is supported by an external Advisory Board comprised of current appointed and elected officials from Western states. The board will help to direct the policy activities and act as a link between the government and the industry.
Stuttgart, Germany – According to a representative survey conducted in June 2020 by the market research institute Innofact on behalf of Bosch, no powertrain types have lost any of their relevance – whether batteries or fuel cells, gasoline or diesel engines. If the 2,500 survey respondents in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. had to decide on a new car tomorrow, one in two would opt for a stand-alone combustion engine for their primary car and around one in three for their second car. However, when asked what would be the most prevalently used powertrain in 2030, some 68 percent of those polled see the electrical powertrain in pole position, ahead of hybrids and combustion engines. Survey participants acknowledged the potential of fuel cell-powered cars, with around one in three seeing the fuel cell as the future of mobility. “Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed,” says Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector.
Respondents want incentives for all powertrain types
A further question reveals respondents’ open-mindedness toward powertrains of all types: when asked whether they favor incentives for vehicles equipped solely with combustion engines, in addition to the many government subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids, 70 percent of the Europeans polled answered in the affirmative. The number of respondents in favor of government incentives to buy new cars with a conventional powertrain is highest in Italy at 83 percent, and lowest in the United Kingdom at 60 percent. In France, 77 percent are in favor; in Germany, 62 percent. “Incentivizing modern combustion engines can accelerate the vehicle fleet’s renewal, which would also help the environment and the climate,” Hartung says. Just under one-third of Europeans would like to see this subsidy run to at least 9,000 euros. This is the same as the maximum rebate currently offered by the German government for the purchase of an electric car. Two findings are notable: for one, 72 percent of city dwellers in the four surveyed European countries believe the combustion engine merits a subsidy. For the other, the majority (80 percent) of 18-to-29 year-olds also endorse incentives for cars with combustion engines.
Even cars with conventional engines can run in a climate-neutral way. The key to this is renewable synthetic fuels (RSF), which are made from renewable hydrogen and CO₂ captured from the surrounding air. On average, 57 percent of those taking part in the Bosch survey agreed that RSF should benefit from tax breaks. “There’s just no way around renewable synthetic fuels if we want to achieve our climate targets,” Hartung says. “Only with RSF can the more than one billion vehicles already on the road worldwide help contain global warming.”
Can’t live without a car: respondents in Europe are unanimous
In Europe, the status of the car and its importance for mobility is unlikely to change any time soon. Around 60 percent of those surveyed in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. are unable to imagine living without a car altogether. And a clear majority of the remaining 40 percent are only prepared to leave their car behind some of the time. The car’s approval rating in rural Europe is 77 percent. Incidentally, these findings are roughly similar among 18-to-29 year-olds, around half of whom also come out clearly in favor of a car. While 61 percent of those surveyed in Germany and 47 percent in the U.K. cited greater flexibility as the most important reason for having a car, 41 percent of French respondents indicated they need it mostly for work. In contrast, 55 percent of surveyed Italians prefer the car to other forms of mobility that they feel are less convenient. “For the foreseeable future, the car will remain the number one means of transport – and has excellent prospects of becoming even more climate-friendly,” Hartung says. Bosch’s objective is for people to be able to stay mobile in an affordable and eco-friendly way.
The future of the powertrain: Bosch champions electromobility and combustion technology
Bosch aims to make transportation as resource-friendly as possible, and is pursuing the vision of CO₂-neutral and virtually emissions-free mobility in several ways. In its approach to future powertrain technology, the supplier of technology and services is keeping an open mind. On the one hand, Bosch aims to become the market leader in electromobility with battery and fuel cell-powered vehicles. Electric vehicles are climate-neutral if the charging power and hydrogen are sourced from renewables. On the other hand, Bosch is continuing to refine combustion engines to contain global warming and protect the environment to the greatest extent possible. If they run on RSF, gasoline and diesel engines can also be climate-neutral on the road. Bosch expects around one-third of all newly registered vehicles worldwide to be purely electric by 2030. Two-thirds of all new vehicles will still be powered by a combustion engine, many of them as hybrids.
“ Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed. ”
Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector
The lab has announced that it is participating in three newly announced H2 projects.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has announced its participation in three new hydrogen fuel cell technology projects.
These projects are designed to help bring hydrogen fuel cell tech to a new level.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is participating in these three new projects following Department of Energy funding. The DOE has committed $112 million for the three projects over the next five years. This is one component of a massive broader effort for the advancement of clean technology, as well as the improvement of fuel cell durability, lifetime and efficiency.
One of the three projects in which the lab is participating is the Million Mile Fuel Cell Truck Consortium. The lab will be co-leading that project and will also co-lead the HydroGEN 2.0 project and H2NEW.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to advance fuel cell technology.
“At Berkeley Lab we are focused on renewable energy conversion technologies such as hydrogen; it’s complex and significant research that involves several of our scientific divisions and user facilities,” said Horst Simon, the deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“People have said the 2020s will be the decade of hydrogen. Worldwide you’re seeing an uptick, and it’s really taking off,” added lab scientist Adam Weber. “These multi-lab consortia are effective vehicles to get people working together toward a common vision and really move the needle on the technology.”
The Department of Energy has been announcing huge investments into new H2 projects. This summer, it revealed that it would be investing the more than $100 million total into two new consortia led by the DEO National Laboratory. The funds are to be used on projects that will advance hydrogen fuel cell technology research and development (R&D).
Since this announcement, various projects have been awarded their portion of the funds and their goals in using the DOE funding for moving the H2 technology forward. The Lab’s projects are focused on an area of hydrogen fuel cell technology that is expected to see considerable growth in coming years. H2 truck and heavy-duty vehicle uses are viewed as having considerable potential.
Electric cars which can be filled up within five minutes, reach ranges like a diesel and yet drive "cleanly": This is already being achieved by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles today. However, so far they are still rare and expensive. Apart from efficiency problems, this is due, among other things, to one core component: Gold-coated bipolar plates (BiP) in fuel cells are expensive and complex to manufacture. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS Dresden, the German automotive group Daimler and the Finnish steel company Outokumpu Nirosta have now developed an economical alternative for rapid mass production.
The Daimler bipolar plate (above) is coated with a carbon layer (below), reducing contact resistance and simultaneously increasing corrosion resistance.
The approximately 50 to 100 micrometer thin steel sheets are coated with a graphite-like layer just a few nanometers thick.
To this end, scientists at the Fraunhofer IWS have developed a technology that facilitates the continuous production of bipolar plates. Instead of gold, they coat the bipolar plates with a very thin carbon coating. This concept is well suited for mass production and can significantly reduce manufacturing costs. In addition, it contributes to the development of environmentally friendly vehicles.
Fuel cells are promising technological alternatives to battery concepts
„If the automotive industry is talking about alternative drive concepts today, it usually means battery electric driving", explains IWS Director Prof. Christoph Leyens. "Fuel cells, however, could offer an attractive technological solution for application scenarios such as trucks requiring a long range. We therefore work closely together with our industrial partners in order to enable more cost-effective and efficient fuel cells".
"Engineers are idealists, too, and so we are particularly passionate about this project," emphasizes Dr. Teja Roch, scientist at the IWS. "We are delivering a cornerstone for climate-neutral mobility beyond classic combustion engines. However, the project will only work if the new process is profitable in practice. "Our technology offers the potential to significantly reduce the production costs of fuel cells."
A fuel cell - how does it work?
Fuel cells operate like mini power plants: They are supplied with hydrogen and oxygen and use them to generate water, electricity and heat in a chemical reaction. Various designs can be considered. A widely used model is the PEM fuel cell. PEM fuel cells contain stacks consisting of many individual cells, each with a proton exchange membrane (PEM) in the middle. To the right and left of this membrane there are electrodes with catalysts, a gas diffusion layer (GDL) and bipolar plates on both sides. Hydrogen and oxygen flow through these plates into the cell. The plates consist of two stainless steel half plates each, on which special structures for gas flow and heat dissipation are embossed in a forming process and subsequently welded together.
However, since steel surfaces only poorly conduct electricity, bipolar plates are often coated with gold to prevent rust formation. Above all, however, the precious metal ensures that the current can easily flow, meaning that the contact resistance between the gas diffusion layer and the bipolar plate remains low. "However, gold is known to be expensive," says Teja Roch, outlining a problem with this frequently used solution. "In addition, the stainless steel plates for the plates are first formed and welded together and subsequently coated in stacks. This is a rather costly and time-consuming process."
Therefore, IWS researchers and their partners from the automotive and steel industry have explored new paths in the course of the joint project "miniBIP II" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. Instead of using gold, they have coated the approximately 50 to 100 micrometers (thousandths of a millimeter) thin steel sheets with a graphite-like layer only a few nanometers (millionths of a millimeter) thick. They use physical vapor deposition (PVD) for this process. In this technology, an electric arc in a vacuum chamber first vaporizes the carbon, which is subsequently deposited on the stainless steel in a highly pure, uniform and very thin layer.
Coating costs reduced by half
Even in the pre-series stage, this carbon layer achieves a contact resistance similar to the gold coating. In other words, if the engineers further improve their process up to mass production, the coating will conduct electricity at least as well as the precious metal, possibly even better - at half the cost of coating. Fraunhofer IWS scientists are convinced that this will contribute to a new generation of more efficient fuel cells with higher electrical yield.
In addition, the innovative Fraunhofer technology also promises a higher production speed. The carbon layer is so extremely thin that the coating process itself takes only a few seconds. In addition, stack producers will in future be able to coat entire sheet metal rolls "non-stop" before forming. After all, the Fraunhofer coating is so durable that it can withstand the forming and welding process. "This enables a continuous manufacturing process and thus a much higher production throughput than ever before," explains Dr. Roch.
Fuel cell vehicles with the range of a diesel
Such improved and lower-cost fuel cells are particularly important for mobile use. They are particularly suitable for environmentally friendly cars, buses and long-range trucks that need to be refueled quickly. The "miniBIP II" project thus contributes to the Federal Government's recently reaffirmed strategy of making Germany a pioneer of future hydrogen technologies. Some market analysts such as IDTechEx and McKinsey expect that by 2030 several million vehicles with fuel cell technology will already be on the road worldwide. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has taken up this challenge. In a joint initiative, the involved institutes are providing their "expertise to support the hydrogen age". Fraunhofer IWS participates in this network as well. Further information can be found online here:
9월21일,중국 재정부,공업정보화부,과학기술부,발개위,국가에너지국 등 중앙부처가 수소차 보급을 위한 장려책(<연료전지차 시범응용에 관한 통지, (이하'통지')>*)를발표했다.단순한 구매 보조금 지원이 아닌수소차 핵심 기술·부품 개발 및 산업망 구축 등 방면에서 성과를 낸 지방정부와 기업에 장려금을 지원하는 것이 골자이다.정책 시범 시행기간은4년이다.
단순한 수소차 생산·투자 확대만으로는 장려금을 지원받을 수 없다.이번 정책은 핵심기술의 산업화와 상용화,완전한 산업망 구축에 초점을 맞췄다.
지정된'수소차 시범 도시군'*이 수소차 기술혁신,산업화,완전한 산업망 구축,상용화,보급 확대 등 방면에서 낸 성과를 점수로 합산해 최종 점수에 따라 지방정부와 참여 기업에 장려금을 지원한다.장려금은 매년 합산된 점수에 따라 지원하며 도시군당 최대17억 위안을 받을 수 있다.
*지방정부 연합(=도시군)신청에 따라 전문가 평가,심사 후 확정
점수 및 장려금은 매년 축소하지만8종 핵심부품* 개발 점수와 장려금은2023년까지4년간 축소하지 않는다.
당국은 트럭과 대형 버스의 점수 환산계수·배수 등은 승용차보다 높게 책정했다.정부의 대형 수소버스,대형 수소화물차 보급 확대 의지를 반영한다.
수소차 장려금
구분
모터
출력㎾
환산
계수
초과
배수
표준
대수
포인트(점수)
핵심
부품
장려금(만위안)
'20
'21
'22
'23
1p당
'20
'21
'22
'23
승용차
50
1
1
1
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
33.5
32.5
31.5
29.5
80
1.9
1
1.9
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
45.2
43.3
41.4
37.6
중소형트럭/버스
50
1
1
1
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
33.5
32.5
31.5
29.5
80
1.6
1
1.6
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
41.3
39.7
38.1
34.9
대형버스
50
1
1
1
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
33.5
32.5
31.5
29.5
110
2.8
1
2.8
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
56.9
54.1
51.3
45.7
트럭
(12~25톤)
50
1
1.1
1.1
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
34.8
33.7
32.6
30.4
110
2.8
1.1
3.08
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
60.5
57.5
54.4
48.2
트럭
(25~31톤)
50
1
1.3
1.3
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
37.4
36.1
34.8
32.2
110
2.8
1.3
3.64
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
67.8
64.2
60.5
53.3
트럭
(〉31톤)
50
1
1.5
1.5
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
40
38.5
37
34
110
2.8
1.5
4.2
1.3
1.2
1.1
0.9
2.05
10
75.1
70.9
66.7
58.3
자료:중국 재정부, CICC연구부 등
장려금은 지방정부와 기업에서 총괄해 수소차 핵심기술 산업화·상용화,인재 육성,수소차 신차 모델 및 신기술 개발 등에 활용할 수 있다.
중국 수소차 정책 방향과 산업현황
중국 정부는 자동차 강국으로 도약하기 위해2016년부터 수소차 산업 육성에 착수했다. 2016년중국 공업정보화부의 위탁으로 중국자동차공정학회<신에너지·에너지절약형 자동차 기술 로드맵(节能与新能源汽车技术路线图,이하 ‘로드맵’)>을 발표한 바 있다.로드맵에서2020년까지 수소차5000대,충전소100기, 2025년에는 수소차5만 대,충전소300기까지 늘리고2030년에는 수소차100만 대,충전소1000기 시대를 열어 세계 최대의 수소차 시장이 되겠다는 목표를 내세웠다.
중국 수소차 로드맵
자료:중국 정부 발표자료,일본 미쓰이물산 전략연구소
중국 정부는 최근에도 기술 혁신,재정 지원,세수 우대 등 지원을 대폭 강화하고 있다.
최근 수소차 지원정책
① 2020.4.22.재정부 등<신에너지차 자동차구매세 면제 관련 공고>
- 2021.1.1.~2022.12.31.전기차와 수소차의 자동차 구매세(10%)면제 조치
정부 지원·육성책에 힘입어 중국내 수소차 생산량,판매량(2020년 3월 말 기준,누계치)은 각각6918대, 6235대에 도달했다.올1분기 생산량은305대로 나타났다.
각 지역의 수소차 시범운행 상황을 살펴보면 광둥,상하이,베이징,장쑤 등 경제발전수준이 높은 지역에 집중돼 있으며 수소 물류차와 수소버스가 주를 이룬다.
*시범운행 중인 중국 수소차 중 물류차(3009대, 61%)와 버스(1298대, 27%)가 절대적 비중을 차지
자료: 중국자동차기술연구센터
전망 및 시사점
업계는 중앙정부가 지역 평형성을 위해 베이징,상하이,장쑤,광둥 등 경제발전 수준이 높은 지역뿐만 아니라 동북,서북,화중 등 다양한 지역에서'시범 도시군'을 선정할 것으로 보고 있다.중신증권 등 연구기관은 지정된 도시군 수는8~10개,연간 장려금 규모는150억~170억 위안 수준으로 예상했다.
중국자동차기술연구센터 허윈탕(何雲堂)엔지니어는 수소차 보급 수준을 향상하려면 차량 안전을 보장해야 하는데 관건은 정부가 제정,발표하는 표준에 있다고 강조했다.중국 정부는 현재 수소차 스택 구성부분,운전장비 부품,전장장치 부품,수소저장장치 부품 등 핵심 부품군,완성차 관련 국가표준 제정,개정에 박차를 가하고 있다.일부는 강제성 표준이 아닌 추천성,업종 내 표준이지만 향후 강제성 국가표준에 가속도가 붙을 것으로 내다봤다.
자료:공업정보화부,중신(中信)증권연구부, CICC(中金公司)연구부 등KOTRA베이징 무역관 종합
