Cleantech Investor

First published in Cleantech magazine, October 2010. Copyright Cleantech Investor Ltd 2010

By Dr Denis Gross

ITM Power launched its HFuel mobile vehicle refueller during an Open Day at its manufacturing facility on 15 September 2010. HFuel is a transportable, fully autonomous hydrogen refuelling station for fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, targeted at decarbonising return-to-base logistics fleet vehicles. HFuel is currently being manufactured with support from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and partners Gateway to London and Revolve Technologies. In the first instance it will be used to power two Ford Transit Vans with hydrogen ICEs, which have been specially adapted by Revolve Technologies.

HFuel will be used in ITM’s Hydrogen on Site Trials (HOST) programme, which is attracting increasing interest and participation. HOST, scheduled to begin in 2011, will involve the operation and refuelling of the two Revolve Technologies hydrogen ICE (HICE) Ford Transit vehicles. The hydrogen will be produced, at the point of use, at sites operated by participating companies and in the Gateway to London development area. Recent additions to the organisations participating in HOST include Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and Vestas Wind Systems. They join a list of organisations that includes DHL Supply Chain, Scottish Police Services Authority, the London Borough of Camden, London Stansted Airport, The Forestry Commission and Sheffield City Council.

SSE, which has the most diverse range of fuel sources amongst UK generators, including 2,370MW of capacity for generating electricity from renewable energy sources, supplies electricity and gas to around 9.45 million. SSE's involvement in joining the HOST programme will enable it to analyse the suitability of using green hydrogen to decarbonise its large fleet of vehicles.

Vestas, headquartered in Denmark, signed up to HOST in October 2010. Vestas is the world leader in wind turbines and, with 40,659 turbines installed at the end of 2009, enjoys a market share in excess of 12.5%. In the context of HOST, Vestas will assess energy storage in terms of hydrogen generated using wind energy – i.e. clean fuel, for decarbonising return-to-base logistics fleet vehicles.

HOST will provide each partner with a free trial of HFuel and the Revolve Technologies HICE vehicles for a week, and an option to lease both HFuel and vehicles for additional week(s). The demonstrations will be fully managed and operated by ITM Power personnel, who will liaise with the site owners’ operations and management.

The role of hydrogen in decarbonising transport – and the timing of a move to fuel cell vehicles – remains a subject of debate. In the meantime, however, the components for a hydrogen infrastructure are being assembled. ITM’s Open Day, hosted by Chairman Professor Roger Putnam, offered insights into the global hydrogen economy and ITM Power's analysis of hydrogen’s role. The audience comprised a diverse mix, including representatives from City finance institutions, industry and stakeholders. The ITM vision was outlined in a presentation entitled ’From Energy Storage to Clean Fuel’, which demonstrated the company’s commitment to clean sustainable energy solutions based on the electrolysis of water and its belief that its electrolyser and fuel cell technologies have the potential to become key components of a future hydrogen economy based on ‘green’ hydrogen.

The presentation, by the company’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Graham Cooley and Chief Technical Officer Dr Simon Bourne, included an introduction to ITM’s technology base and the range of market entry products, most of which have been developed by the new management team within the last year.

Graham Cooley then focused on the themes of energy storage and clean fuel. Energy storage offers a solution to the challenge of meeting the pattern of electricity demand through a tiered generating structure with its attendant inefficiencies (for example, only 40% of plant is fully utilised in the UK). Energy storage allows peaks of demand to be shifted to fill the troughs, reducing the need for peaking and increasing system efficiency.

Energy storage can also potentially help to overcome the difficulties encountered through the addition of intermittent power, which has been found to undermine the base load and increase the need for spinning reserves. A 2009 study by CEPOS, the Danish think tank, shows that, while 20% of generating capacity in Denmark is wind powered, only 5% of the country’s demand is in fact met by wind. Denmark’s predicament is that 50% of the wind generated electricity it produces has to be exported, since it cannot be used, and is sold at a discount to the cost of generation to neighbouring Norway and Sweden, thereby creating the anomaly of negative electricity prices. However, with the increasing importance being accorded to renewable energy in future electricity generation strategies globally, these problems must be addressed if the current carbon dioxide reduction targets are to be met. Energy storage offers a solution to these problems.

A number of technologies have been developed for bulk and distributed energy storage. However, several of these remain unproven and, for the remainder, cost targets are difficult to define and there are technology risks with scaling up. Cooley outlined the case for hydrogen storage, which is looking increasingly feasible for distributed energy storage, and is set to play an important role in exporting power to other sectors, contributing to decarbonisation and fuel security.

The transport sector is one which is an obvious customer for hydrogen – it is virtually universally accepted that a clean alternative to fossil fuels is needed for transportation. There are several scenarios for the uptake of electric vehicles, including fuel cell cars, with a spectrum of bullishness to bearishness. Major OEMs are launching hydrogen fuel cell cars – the Honda Clarity FCX, the Chevrolet Equinox and the Toyota FCHV, for example – and every OEM is developing hybrid vehicles. The ‘hydrogen highway’ infrastructure necessary for hydrogen vehicles – either fuel cell vehicles or internal combustion vehicles such as ITM’s experimental Ford Focus – is being rolled out in a number of countries. In Europe, Germany and Italy are leading the way, with Germany targeting 1,000 refuelling stations by 2015.

The majority of hydrogen currently used is ‘brown’ hydrogen, derived from reformed natural gas or methane. In the long term this has to be viewed as unsustainable. The fossil source of methane is compounded by losses in transportation and the fact that diesel is likely to be consumed in that transportation. Ultimately, ‘green’ hydrogen, generated by the electrolysis of water by electricity from renewable sources, at the point of use, is the most appropriate solution – and one that ITM is addressing.

ITM’s existing stationary high pressure hydrogen refueller, the HPRU – one of only four refuellers in the UK at present – will be complemented by an integrated product range comprising home refuelling units to mobile infrastructure units. The infrastructure unit is the HFuel, to be used in the HOST programme, which can supply 15kg/day of hydrogen for rapid cascade refuelling at 350 bar. A flexible, modular and transportable refuelling unit, HFuel is targeted at the urban commercial fleet market.  

Also in the range of hydrogen refuellers are HPac, a flexible mid-size hydrogen generator that can be configured to meet a range of hydrogen pressures, purity and flow rate, and HFill, a home refueller for coupling to embedded renewable energy. HFill arises from a collaboration with NextEnergy (a non-profit organisation founded in Michigan in 2002 to accelerate alternative energy technology). It represents the second phase of a six phase programme to develop a small-scale hydrogen fuelling appliance (SHFA) suitable for the next generation of hydrogen-powered vehicles being developed by major automobile manufacturers.

As Graham Cooley has noted: "...the time for hydrogen is now; the products are ready and the UK has the technology to become a world leader”.