Ballard Power Systems announced that its proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology and products have now powered Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) in commercial heavy- and medium-duty motive applications for acumulative total of more than 50 million kilometers on roads around the globe, an increase of more than 5-times since 2017.
Ballard PEM fuel cell technology and products—with the 8th generation power module launched in 2019—have been integrated for many years into FCEVs to provide zero-emission power for vehicle propulsion in 15 countries around the world. This includes approximately 1,000 Fuel Cell Electric Buses (FCEBs) and 2,200 commercial trucks.
Approximately 70% of the more than 50 million kilometers has been achieved in FCEVs deployed in China, with the remaining vehicles deployed in Europe and North America.
For the first half of 2020, FCEVs monitored by Ballard delivered fuel cell uptime of approximately 98%. Ballard’s unmatched field experience—through a wide range of duty cycles, climate and road conditions—has been leveraged through an effective feedback loop into product design and development efforts, resulting in the fuel cell industry’s highest performance products designed for Heavy- and Medium-Duty Motive applications.
Some of the FCEBs that operated over 8-years in the field exceeded 38,000 hours of revenue service with no major fuel cell maintenance requirements.
Once upon a time, hydrogen was supposed to be the future of energy. In 1845, English scientist Sir William Grove (aka “the father of the fuel cell”) demonstrated that, given the right conditions and the addition of oxygen, hydrogen gas — also called H2 — can undergo a chemical reaction and produce a potent, and non-polluting, electrical punch. The possibilities for hydrogen power seemed endless: It could fuel our cars, heat our homes, and even power our airplanes. But today, 175 years after the creation of that first “gas battery,” the technology has yet to reach its full potential.
True, some of hydrogen power’s initial promise has borne fruit — there are cars running on compressed hydrogen cells (producing a trickle of water instead of toxic exhaust) and even some small H2-powered planes in development. But with more and more cars using lithium-ion batteries instead — and airlines developing sustainable fuels made from cooking oil and mustard seed — it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon.
There’s one sector, however, where hydrogen power could be critically important: manufacturing, the part of the economy that makes steel, cement, and basically every other material good. Industrial processes, most of which involve burning fossil fuels on-site for energy, account for over 20 percent of fossil fuel pollution worldwide. Those emissions are notoriously difficult to cut, but experts say that hydrogen, produced with renewable energy, could provide a solution.
“Hydrogen is probably the most promising” way to cut industrial emissions, said Kobad Bhavnagri, head of special projects at BloombergNEF, an independent research firm focusing on clean energy. “It’s the most versatile and the most scalable solution to getting to zero emissions.”
Now, normally, H2 isn’t exactly a “clean” form of energy. Although hydrogen is a naturally occurring element, it needs to be treated in order to produce the kind of highly pure stream necessary for fuel cell production. In the U.S., 95 percent of hydrogen is manufactured through a process called “steam reforming,” in which natural gas is combined with steam and then broken into its component parts, including hydrogen and carbon dioxide. (Not only does the reaction produce CO2 on its own, but the process also requires a whole bunch of energy which is not great for the planet.) But hydrogen can also be made cleanly out of regular old water (H2O — makes sense, right?) and electricity. If the electricity comes from renewable sources like wind or solar, the resulting fuel is called “green hydrogen.”
“It’s not rocket science,” said Thomas Koch Blank, senior principal of industry and heavy transport at the Rocky Mountain Institute. “It’s basically a big bathtub, and you stick a power cord at each end and run a current through it.” The electric current splits the water into O2 and H2, and voila! green hydrogen is born.” (Note: Kids, don’t try this at home.)
Green hydrogen could be crucial to decarbonizing industrial manufacturing. In most sectors, the solution to cutting emissions is to electrify everything — cars, for example, or home heating. But for, say, concrete production, that classic formula doesn’t work. Industrial processes require high levels of heat and complicated chemical reactions that can’t be provided by electricity alone. Hydrogen, on the other hand, can burn hot enough to run a blast furnace, and also be used as an ingredient in necessary chemical processes for products like steel.
At the moment, this is all fairly speculative — industry still runs mostly on fossil fuels. But in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, European countries are boosting green hydrogen programs as part of their coronavirus stimulus packages, positioning themselves as leaders in a largely untapped market. Last month, Germany announced a “National Hydrogen Strategy,” earmarking $8.2 billion for investments in new business and research around green hydrogen, and an additional $2.3 billion for building up international partnerships around the new fuel.
The European Union as a whole hasn’t announced a green hydrogen spending plan yet, but it has promised to prioritize the gas in the coming decades. The European Commission announced earlier this month that it would aim to deploy 40 gigawatts of electrolyzers (the machines that split water into hydrogen and oxygen) within its borders by 2030 and another 40 in countries that can export to the EU. That represents about 320 times the electrolyzing power currently available worldwide.
“What Europe and Germany have done, I suspect, will trigger something of an arms race or a scale-up race” for hydrogen power, Bhavnagri told Grist. “Everybody else will now have to get on board if they want to keep pace.”
The United States, however, is dragging its feet. “The U.S. at a national level has not released any hydrogen strategy,” Bhavnagri said.
U.S. investments in green hydrogen have been small thus far: The Energy Department announced last week that it would spend $64 million on hydrogen research and development in 2020, with $15 million earmarked towards lowering the cost of green hydrogen specifically. But that $64 million is still only a tiny fraction of what Germany has vowed to spend boosting its own H2 technology.
Meanwhile, House Democrats’ massive, 538-page climate plan mentions green hydrogen, but stops short of recommending specific investments or a large-scale build out of electrolyzing technology across the country. Instead, Democrats simply point to the need for a tax credit to lower production costs for low- or zero-emission hydrogen projects. This is despite the fact that, according to modeling from the nonpartisan policy firm Energy Innovation, switching industrial fuels to green hydrogen could reduce U.S. greenhouse emissions by roughly a billion tons by 2050 — equivalent to taking around 200 million cars off the road for a whole year.
According to Blank, the United States’ slow progress on green hydrogen is partly due to the widespread availability of natural gas, which, although it produces fewer emissions than coal or oil, is associated with other environmental risks. “For the U.S., natural gas equals energy security,” he said. With abundant — and cheap — fossil fuels within its borders, the U.S. doesn’t have much incentive to make the leap to hydrogen. “Without carbon prices, it’s a stretch to see that hydrogen is going to be competitive on any large scale,” Blank said of the U.S. industrial sector.
In Europe, on the other hand, the geography and geology is more conducive to a hydrogen power. There are huge areas in the North Sea ideally situated for offshore wind turbines, which could make the production of green hydrogen more economical. Europe also lacks substantial reserves of natural gas, compounding the need for alternative fuel sources that can be manufactured within the bloc itself.
The result, according to Bhavnagri, will be a world that increasingly looks to Europe for hydrogen manufacturing systems — leaving the United States in the dust. For green hydrogen, he warned, “you will go to the European players.”*
*Correction: This piece initially stated that American firms like General Electric would not be sought out for expertise on green hydrogen. In fact, the company is doing advanced work on hydrogen.
COLONIE — Hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power says it is in "discussions with multiple locations" to build a new fuel cell and electrolyzer factory that would open next year.
The so-called gigafactory would be much larger than its existing local assembly facilities in Latham and Clifton Park. Plug Power's fuel cells are mainly used in forklift trucks operated in warehouses by companies like Walmart and Amazon.
Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) is looking pretty electric this morning, rising 17.5% through 11:20 a.m. EDT trading in the wake of an early-morning earnings report that showed the fuel cell maker beating earnings estimates with a stick.
Expected to lose $0.10 per share on sales of no more than $59.5 million in Q2 2020, Plug just reported that it lost only $0.03 per share -- and did $68.1 million in business.
So what
Granted, a loss is still a loss. But Plug's per-share loss in Q2 2020 was barely a third of its $0.08-per-share loss in Q2 2019.
Granted, too, part of the reason Plug's per-share loss was lower, was because it was divided up among many more shares outstanding. Plug diluted its shareholders heavily over the past year, with its shares outstanding count jumping 37%. But even undivided, the total of $8.7 million Plug lost this past quarter was less than half the company's $18.1 million quarterly loss of last year.
Now what
On top of all that, Plug issued new near-term guidance for $110 million to $115 million in "gross billings" in Q3 2020 (up about 55% over Q2 levels), and reaffirmed its very-long-range objective of growing to $1.2 billion in annual revenue, and $200 million in operating profit, by 2024.
2024 may be a long way off, but Plug says it's "on track" to deliver those numbers.
Munich, August 5, 2020 – Emission-free flight is a central goal of civil aviation. Emission-free air transport could be achieved in the long term by converting hydrogen into electricity. This would enable the environment-friendly electrification of propulsion systems. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and MTU Aero Engines are focusing on a fuel cell propulsion system, which they will jointly develop and validate. A Do228 will be used as the flight demonstrator. On 5 August 2020, the partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen.
The MoU was signed by Prof Rolf Henke, DLR Executive Board Member for Aeronautics Research and Technology, and Lars Wagner, Chief Operating Officer at MTU Aero Engines. “Although great progress in the performance and lifespan of fuel cells has been made in recent years, there is still a considerable need for research into their use in aviation,” said Henke. “This planned joint research-industry project is the first of many steps towards emission-free aviation.” Lars Wagner adds: “As things stand today, fuel cells utilising sustainably produced hydrogen offer the greatest long-term potential for realising emissions-free aviation. We believe that they could offer sufficient performance and range for regional, short- and medium-haul aircraft.”
In order to develop and validate such technology, the partners plan to equip a Dornier 228 aircraft with a hydrogen-powered fuel cell and an electrical, single-sided propeller engine with over 500 kW shaft output, and flight test it over the coming years. Apart from water, fuel cells have no emissions and are highly efficient. The aim of the joint technology project is to develop a complete drive train suitable for aviation (power line) and its cooling (cooling line). The electrification of the powertrain is a core technology that serves to prepare a flying fuel-cell-based propulsion system. The partners are aiming for the maiden flight of the Do228 demonstrator to take place from 2026 onwards.
DLR is managing the flight project and providing and operating the research aircraft. It is also responsible for the integration and certification of the powertrain. The research institute will also offer its expertise in the fields of flight testing and aircraft aerodynamics and aeroelasticity. In its role as a partner to industry in the joint project, DLR is therefore contributing its overall system expertise. MTU is tasked with the development of the complete powertrain powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. All work and integration processes will be carried out jointly and in close coordination. Up to 80 experts will be involved.
“The flying test platform will provide important insights that we can use for the further development of electric and hybrid-electric powertrain systems and reduce the ecological footprint of aviation to zero," said Henke. On behalf of MTU, Wagner added: “The development of an airworthy fuel cell and the experience and data acquired as a result, including in the fields of aviation regulation and certification, will prove vitally important to ongoing product development.”
About MTU Aero Engines
MTU Aero Engines AG is Germany's leading engine manufacturer. The company is a technological leader in low-pressure turbines, high-pressure compressors, turbine center frames as well as manufacturing processes and repair techniques. In the commercial OEM business, the company plays a key role in the development, manufacturing and marketing of high-tech components together with international partners. Some 30 percent of today’s active aircraft in service worldwide have MTU components on board. In the commercial maintenance sector the company ranks among the top 3 service providers for commercial aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines. The activities are combined under the roof of MTU Maintenance. In the military arena, MTU Aero Engines is Germany's industrial lead company for practically all engines operated by the country's military. MTU operates a network of locations around the globe; Munich is home to its corporate headquarters. In fiscal 2019, the company had a workforce of more than 10,000 employees and posted consolidated sales of more than 4.6 billion euros.
