New Energies, new possibilities

Banning the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is not a new concept in countries and municipalities outside of the US. Beginning in 2016, European countries and cities began to make commitments to ban the future sale of ICE vehicles. Countries like France, Norway, and the UK have all set dates for these bans, with Norway’s being the most bullish—all new car sales must be zero emissions (battery EV or fuel cell) by 2025. Several cities within Europe have announced similar bans on ICE vehicles, including Rome and Milan, which ban ICE vehicles from entering certain parts of the city.

In late September 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state will phase out the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars to reduce California’s demand for fossil fuels—the first policy of this kind in the US. The executive order requires that all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California be zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035. Plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) are included under current ZEV mandate definitions, but what the exact 2035 regulation will include in terms of powertrains is not yet Other US states like Washington and Hawaii are already considering ICE bans—and more aggressive bans at that—with goals of no ICE vehicle sales by 2030. While these bans have not passed yet, news of California’s ban could spur these states to pass the policies. Furthermore, states currently following California’s ZEV mandates (via California’s waiver from the Clean Air Act) could opt to follow California’s lead in passing ICE bans.

Automakers should ramp up PEV availability in California or risk losing market share come 2035 when the ban takes effect. Automakers committed to even partial electric lineups, such as Volvo, may have an early advantage as other automakers race to meet their announced PEV production dates. California accounts for around 12% of total US light duty vehicle sales. The production changes necessary for automakers to provide enough vehicles to California may encourage them to offer more PEV models in other US states—particularly ZEV states.

Of course, the California ICE ban does not come without criticism. Some believe that California’s ban should be more aggressive, given that the state’s proportion of transportation emissions relative to total emissions is higher than the national proportion. (Transportation accounts for 28% of US emissions but 41% of California emissions.) However, given the availability of PEVs and announced PEVs, even in California, a ban earlier than 2030 is not likely to be successful.

Others believe the ICE ban may have negative impacts on California’s already troubled grid by adding a significant amount of electric load. However, PEVs can be an asset to the grid as it shifts away from fossil fuels and toward more variable renewable energy assets such as wind and solar. In times of low electric capacity or grid operation errors, PEVs can be used as storage that feeds battery charge back into the grid via vehicle-to-grid technology. Using PEVs as a grid asset will require coordination between utilities and fleet operators of PEVs, not just with individual owners of PEVs.

Banning ICEs will move the PEV market forward and significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions from a key contributing sector, particularly if other states follow California’s lead. As a result, automakers will be forced to ramp up PEV production or risk losing market share to automakers who already have a significant PEV lineup.

Summary

Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) find applications not only in fuel cells and sensors but as chemical filters and in biological systems. In particular, the Nafion (Chemours Company) PEM, which consists of sulfonated tetrafluoroethylene–based fluoropolymer-copolymer, is widely used in practical electrochemical processes. It has a high proton conductivity up to 0.2 S/cm below 80°C and high relative humidity (RH) (>93%) (1), but its conductivity drops severely at higher temperatures or at low RH (below 50%). On page 596 of this issue, Qian et al. (2) report a new class of proton membranes assembled from two-dimensional (2D) layered transition-metal phosphorus trichalcogenide (TMPTC) nanosheets in which metal vacancies boost ion conductivity. These membranes exhibit a proton conductivity of ∼0.95 S/cm at 90°C and 98% RH but still have a conductivity of 0.26 S/cm even at 60% RH.

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A fuel cell bus unveiled by Chinese automaker Geely. (Photo courtesy of Geely)

TOKYO/BEIJING/NAGOYA, Japan -- China's push to promote hydrogen fuel cells as the next big thing in the auto industry has led to a slew of ambitious plans to develop the sector as local authorities vie for hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives.

State-owned SAIC Motor, based in Shanghai, recently announced its first medium-term strategy for fuel cells. The automaker aims to roll out at least 10 models and gain the capacity to produce 10,000 vehicles per year by 2025, and will shift to domestic sourcing as it looks to become globally competitive by 2030.

SAIC's announcement represents part of a plan by the Shanghai government, which oversees the automaker, to cultivate the city's fuel cell industry. The municipal government said last month that it aims to have 10,000 fuel cell autos in use by 2023 and build up the sector's output to 100 billion yuan ($14.9 billion).

The Chinese government has subsidized purchases of fuel cell vehicles for some time. A hydrogen-powered bus, for example, can qualify for as much as $100,000 in local and central government incentives in some cases. Yet a total of just 7,200 or so fuel cell vehicles had been sold as of this past July.

The government is shifting its approach, focusing on support for related areas such as parts and hydrogen fueling stations, which are seen as essential for bringing fuel cells into broader use.

Under a new program announced last month, certain municipalities will be designated as "model cities," with each receiving up to 1.7 billion yuan in funding for fuel cell vehicle development over four years.

The cities of Chongqing and Chengdu have already submitted a joint application. Yang Liqiong, deputy director of the Chongqing Economic and Information Technology Commission, told reporters that the city will "establish a hydrogen-power corridor with Chengdu."

Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing are also set to apply before the mid-November deadline, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Local authorities plan to supplement central government funding with subsidies of their own to support businesses in the field.

China seeks to make all new autos sold in the country "eco-friendly" by 2035, with "new-energy vehicles" such as electrics and hydrogen-powered cars making up half the total, according to a road map announced Tuesday. The government aims to boost cumulative sales of fuel cell vehicles to 1 million by that year.

These targets will be essential to reaching the country's goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2060.

Fuel cells are seen as especially promising for commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks, as they are lighter and have a longer range than electric batteries.

China also has a ready supply of hydrogen, which is generated as a byproduct of chemical plants and steel mills. Switching to fuel cells from gasoline would help improve energy security for a country that imports 70% of its oil.

The fuel cell push is particularly good news for Toyota Motor, which is a trailblazer in the field and also has many partner companies in Beijing and Guangdong Province, which are seen as likely candidates for the "model city" program.

The government's policies are "very welcome," a Toyota executive said.

Toyota supplies parts for fuel cell vehicles to Chinese partners including FAW Group under a 2019 tie-up. The Japanese company also formed a joint venture this past August with FAW and four other automakers to develop fuel cells for commercial vehicles, which is slated to begin shipping fuel cell systems for Chinese buses and trucks in fiscal 2022.

Toyota supplies cell stacks made in Japan's Aichi Prefecture, where its headquarters are located, aiming to promote fuel cell technology in China while minimizing the risk of technology leaks.

But some in Japan regard China's progress on this front with alarm. Tokyo's strategic hydrogen road map calls for the total number of fuel cell autos in the country to reach 40,000 by 2020, but only about 4,000 had been sold as of the end of fiscal 2019.

While Toyota and compatriot Honda Motor are at the forefront in terms of technology, developing a supply chain will be difficult until fuel cells enter broader use.

"Looking at China's momentum is worrying," an executive in the Toyota group said. "We want to see stronger policies from the Japanese government."

COLUMBUS, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) has announced the company received two federal grants totaling $4.6 million to advance commercialization of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology, which could play a critical role in helping commercial and industrial customers reduce their carbon impact while providing energy resiliency and cutting costs.

SOFCs can convert fossil fuels into energy much more efficiently than combustion-based processes and can also use low- and no-carbon fuels such as hydrogen to generate power. They have the potential to be a bridge to a carbon-neutral future and much more.

“We need every tool we can get to address the world’s climate challenges and other environmental issues,” said Thad Ewald, Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Cummins. “Solid oxide fuel cells give our customers another way to achieve their environmental sustainability goals.”

SOFCs use a ceramic electrolyte to convert the energy in a fuel to power through a series of electrochemical reactions. With a continuous supply of fuel and oxygen, the fuel cells can be linked or stacked together to power a variety of applications.

Compared to combustion processes, SOFCs are capable of converting a significantly higher percentage of a fossil fuel’s energy into electricity while producing far less heat-trapping gases and emissions than an internal combustion engine using a petroleum-based fuel, or a coal-burning power plant.

Advocates envision a day in the near future when solid oxide fuel cells regularly power major energy users like data centers, removing them from an increasingly over-burdened electrical grid.

The grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will help fund two projects demonstrating SOFCs’ potential. A $2.6 million DOE grant will help Cummins build a 20 kilowatt (kW) small-scale SOFC power system at the University of Connecticut, fueled by natural gas but able to use multiple fuels. It will run 5,000 hours to demonstrate its durability.

That’s not a big enough SOFC system to power a data center but systems can be aggregated together to provide energy resiliency, security and availability, sufficient for not only data centers but other commercial and industrial applications and microgrids, too.

Cummins’ proposal calls for developing a system that would be available at a price point below $1,000/kW with the flexibility and robustness for use in smaller and larger systems. The proposal calls for testing to begin in 2021.

A second project funded with the help of a $2 million DOE grant will look at the cost, performance and reliability of a reversible fuel cell or R-SOFC. It can run as a traditional SOFC or as a solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) that can split steam to separate hydrogen and oxygen.

This increases Cummins’ already market leading portfolio of electrolyzers to generate hydrogen, including Proton Exchange Membrane and alkaline technologies. The DOE grant proposal calls for building on a Cummins proprietary thermal spray technology to develop an advanced metal substrate or surface resulting in a 50% cost reduction by using less metal and cutting processing costs.

Cummins is quickly emerging as the leader in SOFCs for commercial and industrial power. The company’s novel spray technology, for example, enables Cummins to achieve larger cells, higher power densities, increased reliability and lower costs. The company’s industry leading cell and stack size reduces system costs and complexity while providing a modular building block suitable for a variety of applications. The company also uses commodity stainless steel in its cells rather than more expensive and brittle ceramics used by some competitors.

The company’s work on SOFCs is consistent with PLANET 2050, Cummins’ environmental sustainability strategy adopted in 2019 to address climate change and other environmental issues. The strategy includes science-based goals aligned with the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century.

Want to learn more about Cummins investments in SOFCs and other fuel cell technologies? Join company leaders including Chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger at 10:30 a.m. (EST) Nov. 16 for Cummins’ Hydrogen Day. Click here to register.

About Cummins Inc.

Cummins Inc., a global power leader, is a corporation of complementary business segments that design, manufacture, distribute and service a broad portfolio of power solutions. The company’s products range from diesel, natural gas, electric and hybrid powertrains and powertrain-related components including filtration, aftertreatment, turbochargers, fuel systems, controls systems, air handling systems, automated transmissions, electric power generation systems, batteries, electrified power systems, hydrogen generation and fuel cell products. Headquartered in Columbus, Indiana (U.S.), since its founding in 1919, Cummins employs approximately 61,600 people committed to powering a more prosperous world through three global corporate responsibility priorities critical to healthy communities: education, environment and equality of opportunity. Cummins serves its customers online, through a network of company-owned and independent distributor locations, and through thousands of dealer locations worldwide and earned about $2.3 billion on sales of $23.6 billion in 2019. See how Cummins is powering a world that’s always on by accessing news releases and more information at https://www.cummins.com/always-on.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advent Technologies, an innovation-driven company in the fuel cell and hydrogen technology space, today announced that it has reached an agreement to collaborate with Los Alamos National Labs, University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University of New Mexico and Toyota Motor North America R&D (TMNA R&D) to continue development of next-generation high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane (HT-PEM) fuel cell technology for the automotive industry. The program is funded by an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (“ARPA-E”) OPEN award.

Dr. Vasilis Gregoriou, Advent’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We at Advent are committed to bringing HT-PEM technology to the market. Drawing on our leadership team’s decades of experience, we intend to commercialize and scale-up membrane electrode assembly (MEA) production while working closely with Tier-1 manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers. We believe that HT-PEM represents not only a breakthrough for heavy-duty automotive technology but also for aviation, portable, and off-grid power generation.”

Dr. Emory DeCastro, Advent’s Chief Technology Officer, added: “We are very excited to work with LANL (Los Alamos) and our other partners to advance this technology. These developments have the potential to lead to groundbreaking cost savings – including dropping overall fuel cell system costs by 25% and enabling higher power density and simplify packaging constraints. Furthermore, the potential to use eFuels instead of hydrogen can provide a significantly lower total cost of ownership and allow for faster deployment of fuel cell technology across the industry.”

The purpose of the development program is to use HT-PEM technology operating at 80oC-150oC to achieve a variety of objectives, including:

About Advent Technologies

Advent Technologies is an innovation-driven company in the fuel cell and hydrogen technology space. Our vision is to accelerate electrification through advanced materials, components, and next-generation fuel cell technology. Our technology applies to electrification (fuel cells) and energy storage (flow batteries, hydrogen production) markets, which we commercialize through partnerships with Tier1s, OEMs, and System Integrators. For more information on Advent Technologies, please visit the Company’s website at https://www.advent.energy/

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Dan Zacchei / Joe Germani
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