The H2Accelerate collaboration has outlined how to build confidence in the UK’s commitment to hydrogen trucking, paving the way for ambitious targets to ban all non-zero-emission heavy duty vehicles to be banned from 2040.
Publishing the latest in a series of whitepapers on the need for supportive policy frameworks to enable the commercialisation of the hydrogen truck sector, H2Accelerate has homed in on the UK landscape. Specifically, it has sought to explore the current UK policy framework for zero emission trucks, before going on to lay out policy changes that could see a large-scale hydrogen trucking sector take shape.
It did highlight signs the UK government is willing to support the early-stage deployment of zero emission trucks, citing the recent publication of the UK Zero-Emission Road Freight Demonstrator as proof.
However, it is going to take longer-term support to provide vehicle original equipment manufacturers with the certainty to invest in right-hand drive vehicles and fuel suppliers with the confidence to develop a nationwide network of hydrogen refuelling stations.
Therefore, H2Accelerate is recommending that the government sets out a minimum level of alternative refuelling network coverage. This should see large-scale hydrogen refuelling stations located every 200km on major networks by 2030, followed by a more comprehensive network then being needed by 2035 comprising of 250 refuelling stations with total capacity of 500 tonnes of hydrogen each day.
Other key recommendations made include strengthening and broadening the scope of the plug-in truck grant to allow all available zero-emission HGVs to be assessed and cover the 80% difference in cost between diesel and hydrogen fuelled trucks for the first 1,000 trucks; to adapt the UK standards for renewable hydrogen so that hydrogen production plants can be connected to existing renewable electricity plants, so long as they enter operation within 36 months; to review the Hydrogen Production Business Model’s agreement to allow the participation of third-party companies, ensuring hydrogen production projects do not have to develop the entire downstream supply chain; and for exemptions for zero emission trucks from levies, tolls and taxes to be created while the sector scales up.
