Planning Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure for Heavy-Duty Vehicles

Hydrogen is no longer a future fuel for heavy-duty transport: bus operators, logistics companies, and municipal fleet managers across Europe are actively building refueling infrastructure. There is growing policy pressure to invest in building hydrogen refueling stations, and the technology has matured enough to support commercial projects at a meaningful scale.

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However, getting hydrogen refueling projects to completion is consistently challenging, and the majority of projects fail for the same reasons. However, starting a project with a good understanding of the landscape saves time and budgets, and keeps a vendor’s credibility intact.

The Three Heavy-Duty Vehicle Types Driving Demand

Not all heavy-duty hydrogen applications are the same, and the differences matter when sizing and operating a station.

1. Bus fleets: Bus fleets are the most established segment. A typical deployment serves 10 to 20 vehicles from a 1 megawatt (MW) electrolyzer and produces around 500 kilograms (kg) of hydrogen per day.

The electrolyzer is often used alongside a photovoltaic array at the depot. Predictable schedules are particularly important for bus operators, so stations should be operational during the times buses are usually fueled.

2. Long-haul trucks: Long-haul trucks require larger refueling systems. Corridors serving goods transport across central Europe typically involve 2 to 5 MW installations, with multiple dispensing points and higher daily throughput.

The economics are more complex, but hydrogen offers a better energy density than batteries at this range, and the payload is significant.

3. Municipal collection vehicles: Municipal collection vehicles are a newer but rapidly growing segment. Cities are increasingly putting restrictions on diesel vehicles in urban centers and pushing waste collection and delivery operators toward adopting zero-emission alternatives.

Plus, hydrogen is becoming increasingly competitive compared to battery electric power for vehicles using fixed urban routes with predictable return-to-depot patterns.

What Makes a HDV Hydrogen Refueling Station Project Viable?

It is essential to have the following in place before a refueling station can be financed.

1. Committed offtake: The fleet customer is the economic foundation of the project. A station without a committed offtake agreement or a serious letter of intent (LOI) has no reliable revenue model, making financing the project impossible.

The assumption that the fleet customer is a downstream concern often makes refueling station projects unviable, so rethinking their role in the project is essential.

2. Workable unit economics: The cost of producing a kilogram of hydrogen on-site must be competitive compared to delivered hydrogen and viable relative to what the fleet operator will pay. This is almost entirely dictated by the technology a developer uses and the price of electricity at the site.

Projects based on expensive electrolyzer technology are often at odds with realistic business cases.

3. Green hydrogen certification: Regulations in the European Union (EU) now state that hydrogen only counts as a green fuel if it is produced from renewable energy at the same time that it is consumed. This rules out grid-powered production for most certification pathways and makes on-site renewable pairing, such as solar or wind technology connected directly to the electrolyzer, a practical requirement.

Each member state will transpose their certification rules differently, which means the specific requirements will vary by country and project managers need to confirm them early.

Image Credit: Power to Hydrogen

Why Electrolyzer Technology Determines the Overall Viability of a Project

The electrolyzer itself has the most influence over whether a project is viable. Three technologies currently dominate the market for refueling station scale at 1 to 5 MW:

1. Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM): PEM is compact and efficient, but requires rare and expensive materials such as iridium, platinum, and titanium. This puts immediate financial constraints on refueling station projects and is therefore largely unsuitable. At 1 MW scale, a PEM system often produces around 420 kg of hydrogen per day.

2. Alkaline: Alkaline is less common in refueling station applications but remains a competitor in some markets. It has a lower upfront cost but requires a steady power supply to operate efficiently, making it a poor match for variable renewable inputs.

In most cases, this disqualifies alkaline systems from green hydrogen certification pathways. Alkaline systems also require more physical space due to the additional compression and purification equipment needed.

3. Anion Exchange Membrane (AEM): AEM is the emerging category designed to close both gaps. It offers the efficiency of PEM technology but does not rely on precious metals, and also offers compatibility with renewable technology that alkaline systems lack.

Newer, hybrid AEM designs have also addressed the durability challenges that held earlier versions of the technology back. At 1 MW, a well-performing AEM system can produce around 500 kg of hydrogen per day. This is approximately 80 kg more than a PEM equivalent, which is enough to fuel two additional buses per day at that scale.

It is crucial to carry out detailed comparisons of every available technology. This should include the total cost of ownership and how teams can evaluate vendor claims on durability. Successful projects pay particular attention to real-world operating conditions.

Alkaline, PEM and Hybrid AEM Electrolyzer Comparison. Source: Power to Hydrogen

Building a Refueling Station or Buying Hydrogen: Which is Better?

It is not always necessary for every heavy-duty vehicle refueling station to produce its own hydrogen. For very small fleets or early pilots, delivered hydrogen transported by tube trailer from a central production facility can be a workable starting point.

However, the economics shift as volume increases. European research on compressed hydrogen logistics puts truck transport costs between €0.30 and €3.44 per kilogram of hydrogen across distances of 25 to 500 kilometers (km).

Small-volume, mid-distance deliveries cost well above €1 per kilogram of hydrogen. At scale, on-site production becomes the more cost-effective option. It also increases a station’s resilience as it eliminates any dependency on an outside supplier’s scheduling and infrastructure.

The point at which a station may break even depends on the size of the fleet, its location, and the cost of electricity. Power to Hydrogen (P2H2) can provide a full cost comparison for project developers that want to run the numbers for a specific project.

The Problems Affecting Hydrogen Refueling Projects

Many hydrogen projects fail to launch. Typically, these failed attempts run into the following four issues:

• Projects begin with an assumed offtake but no official commitment
• Technology is selected on upfront cost rather than the total cost of hydrogen
• Electrolyzers are specified for steady-state operation that degrade under the real-world cycling of a refueling station
• A lack of communication between teams selecting sites and those selecting technology means the footprint mismatch is often discovered after the permitting application, delaying plans

All of these problems can be solved at the beginning of a project by gathering key information at the right stages.

What to Do Before the Feasibility Study

Before commissioning a feasibility study, it is important to have clear answers to five key questions:

1. Who is the fleet customer, and do they have a firm commitment to fuel at this station?
2. What is the daily hydrogen demand, and how variable is the refueling schedule?
3. What renewable power source is available on-site or nearby?
4. What are the space and setback constraints at the candidate site?
5. Which green hydrogen certification pathway applies in the country, and what does it require?

The answers will determine what technology should be chosen, the size of the system, the overall site design, and whether the business case closes at all

Image Credit: Power to Hydrogen

Is Hydrogen Electrolyzer Technology Ready for Use in Commercial Refueling Stations?

Over the last decade, project developers have often raised concerns about whether hydrogen electrolyzers work. Early commercial-scale electrolyzer deployments were limited, and there was a vast difference between what vendors could achieve in controlled conditions and what performed reliably in the real world.

However, that is now changing. There are operational commercial-scale deployments across Europe producing the performance data that project teams can evaluate against real-world expectations.

There have also been significant advancements in durability testing at the stack level. What must be proved now is which technology and which vendor works at the scale and under the operating conditions a project needs.

It is important to gather data from vendors rather than rely on projections and simulations, and to prioritize those that provide data on the tested performance of their technology under variable load and real-world cycling conditions.

Power to Hydrogen: Built for Refueling Station Economics

P2H2 builds hybrid AEM electrolyzers specifically designed for on-site hydrogen production at refueling-station scale and paired with renewable energy under the variable load conditions that real-world operations create.

The company builds its electrolyzers without precious metals, resulting in a 65% lower capital cost than PEM, and at comparable efficiency. These electrolyzers produce approximately 10% more hydrogen per MW because of lower electricity consumption and undergo testing for durability under cycling conditions.

P2H2's M-Class systems scale from 500 kilowatt (kW) to 25 MW, spanning 1 to 5 MW for bus, truck, and municipal fleet deployments.

Image Credit: Power to Hydrogen

This information has been sourced, reviewed, and adapted from materials provided by Power to Hydrogen.

For more information on this source, please visit Power to Hydrogen.