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Fuel cell and hydrogen (FCH) technology is a very promising zero-emission powertrain solution for the heavy-duty trucking industry. The FCH 2 JU subcontracted this study to analyse the state-of-the-art of the technology its surrounding policy and regulatory regime ongoing trial and demonstrations projects and its total cost of ownership and market potential. Furthermore specific case studies and industry experts identified remaining technological and non-technological barriers for FCH technology in different trucking use cases.



The study projects a potential fuel cell trucks sales share of approx. 17% of new trucks sold in 2030 based on a strong technology cost-reduction trajectory. With scaled-up production of FCH trucks and hydrogen offered below 6 EUR/kg FCH heavy-duty trucks (FCH HDT) provide the operational performance most comparable to diesel trucks regarding daily range refuelling time payload capacity and TCO. Nine case studies were developed as first tangible business opportunity blueprints for the industry. They also provide a view on current limitations of real-life operations. In conclusion 22 barriers have been identified that successfully tackled will unlock the full commercial potential of FCH HDT for the trucking and logistics industry. The study proposes tailored R&I projects and policy recommendations that address such remaining barriers in the short-term.

This report is the public version of the deliverable B.3.7 'Life cycle assessment of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies - Inventory of work performed by projects funded under FCH JU'; it provides an overview of the progress achieved so far and a comprehensive analysis on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for various hydrogen technologies and processes. The review considers 73 Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU) founded projects: for some of those the LCA study was requested in the call topic while other projects decided to perform the LCA study on a voluntary basis. The LCAs have been assessed regarding the adherence to guideline recommendations (e.g. reported properties system boundary definitions goal and scope definitions) methodology and overall quality of the work. Methodology is a critical issue for the comparability of results as this is only possible if all LCAs follow the same guidelines; in addition LCAs were often only partially fulfilling the selected guideline requirements. It is recommended that future FCH 2 JU call topics asking for environmental analysis to be performed are setting out some minimum requirements such as the guidelines to be used and the impacts to be assessed. Based on the outcome of this analysis a harmonisation effort in the approach to LCA for the FCH JU founded projects is proposed; in particular a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database useful for the projects is required togheter with the identification of a reference cases to be used as benchmark for future LCAs.

The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) has supported a range of initiatives in recent years designed to develop hydrogen fuel cell buses to a point where they can fulfil their promise as a mainstream zero emission vehicle for public transport.<br/>Within this study 90 different European cities and regions have been supported in understanding the business case of fuel cell bus deployment and across these locations. The study analyses the funding and financing for fuel cell bus deployment to make them become a mainstream zero emission choice for public transport providers in cities and regions across Europe. It also outlines possible solutions for further deployment of FC buses beyond the subsidised phase.<br/>In the light of the experience of the joint tender process in the UK and in Germany the study highlights best practices for ordering fuel cell buses. Other innovative instruments explored in other countries for the orders of large quantities of fuel cells buses are presented: Special Purpose Vehicles and centralised purchase office. Finally the study deeply analyses the funding and financing for fuel cell bus deployment to make them become a mainstream zero emission choice for public transport providers in cities and regions across Europe.

The objective of this pre-normative research (PNR) document is to present a testing procedure for establishing the energy performance of water (steam) electrolyser systems (WE systems) whether grid-connected or off-grid and individual water electrolysers (WEs)/high-temperature electrolysers (HTEs) for the generation of hydrogen by water/steam electrolysis. The WE systems use electricity mostly from variable renewable energy sources. HTE may additionally utilise (waste) heat from energy conversion and other industrial processes. By applying this procedure the determination of the specific energy consumption per unit of hydrogen output under standard ambient temperature and pressure (SATP) conditions allows for an adequate comparison of different WE systems. Also the energy performance potential of WEs or WE systems employing low-temperature water electrolysis (LTWE) technologies compared to HTE employing high-temperature steam electrolysis (HTSEL) technologies may be established under actual hydrogen output conditions by applying this procedure. The test method is to evaluate the specific energy consumption during steady-state operation at specified conditions including rated input power pressure and temperature of hydrogen recommended by the manufacturer of the WE or WE system. The energy efficiency and the electrical efficiency based on higher and lower heating value of hydrogen can be derived from respectively the specific energy consumption and the specific electric energy consumption as additional energy performance indicators (EPIs). In a plant setting the specific energy consumption of an individual water electrolyser including HTE under hydrogen output conditions may also be determined using this testing procedure. This procedure is intended to be used as a general characterisation method for evaluating the energy performance of WEs including HTEs and systems by the research community and industry alike.

Multiscale characterization of the hydrogenation process of silicon solar cell contacts based on c-Si/SiO_x/nc-SiC_x(p) has been performed by combining dynamic secondary ion mass-spectrometry (D-SIMS) atom probe tomography (APT) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These contacts are formed by high-temperature firing which triggers the crystallization of SiCx followed by a hydrogenation process to passivate remaining interfacial defects. Due to the difficulty of characterizing hydrogen at the nm-scale the exact hydrogenation mechanisms have remained elusive. Using a correlative TEM-SIMS-APT analysis we are able to locate hydrogen trap sites and quantify the hydrogen content. Deuterium (D) a heavier isotope of hydrogen is used to distinguish hydrogen introduced during hydrogenation from its background signal. D-SIMS is used due to its high sensitivity to get an accurate deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio which is then used to correct deuterium profiles extracted from APT reconstructions. This new methodology to quantify the concentration of trapped hydrogen in nm-scale structures sheds new insights on hydrogen distribution in technologically important photovoltaic materials.

Hydrogen (H2) is expected to be a key instrument to meet the European Union (EU) Green Deal main objective: i.e. climate neutrality by 2050. Renewable hydrogen deployment is expected to significantly reduce EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by displacing carbon-intensive sources of energy. However concerns have been raised recently regarding the potential global warming impact caused by hydrogen emissions. Although hydrogen is neither intentionally emitted to the atmosphere when used nor a direct greenhouse gas hydrogen losses affect atmospheric chemistry indirectly contributing to global warming. To better understand the potential environmental impact of a hydrogen economy and to assess the need for action in this respect the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking and the U.S. Department of Energy jointly organised with the support of the European Commission Hydrogen Europe Hydrogen Europe Research the Hydrogen Council and the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy a 2-day expert workshop. Experts agreed that a low-carbon and in particular a renewable hydrogen economy would significantly reduce the global warming impact compared to a fossil fuel economy. However hydrogen losses to the atmosphere will impact the lifetime of other greenhouse gases namely methane ozone and water vapour indirectly contributing to the increase of the Earth’s temperature in the near-term. To minimise the climate impact of a hydrogen economy losses should therefore be minimised prevented and monitored. Unfortunately current loss rates along the hydrogen supply chain are not well constrained and are currently estimated to go from few percents for compressed hydrogen (1-4%) up to 10-20% for liquefied hydrogen. Both the global warming impact of hydrogen emissions and the leakage rates from a developed hydrogen economy are subject to a high level of uncertainty. It is therefore of paramount importance to invest in developing the ability to accurately quantify hydrogen emissions as well as engage in more research on hydrogen leakage prevention and monitoring systems. More data from the hydrogen industry and improved observational capacity are needed to improve the accuracy of the global hydrogen budget. Finally it is recommended to always report the amount and location of hydrogen emissions when environmental assessments are performed. There is a range of emission metrics and time scales that are designed to evaluate the climate impacts of short-lived GHG emissions compared to CO2 (i.e. CO2 equivalents). The metric choice must depend on the specific policy goal as they can provide very different perspectives on the relative importance of H2 emissions on the climate depending on the time horizon of concern. These differences need to be viewed in the context of the specific policy objectives.

Smart energy networks provide an effective means to accommodate high penetrations of variable renewable energy sources like solar and wind which are key for the deep decarbonisation of energy production. However given the variability of the renewables as well as the energy demand it is imperative to develop effective control and energy storage schemes to manage the variable energy generation and achieve desired system economics and environmental goals. In this paper we introduce a hybrid energy storage system composed of battery and hydrogen energy storage to handle the uncertainties related to electricity prices renewable energy production and consumption. We aim to improve renewable energy utilisation and minimise energy costs and carbon emissions while ensuring energy reliability and stability within the network. To achieve this we propose a multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient approach which is a deep reinforcement learning-based control strategy to optimise the scheduling of the hybrid energy storage system and energy demand in real time. The proposed approach is model-free and does not require explicit knowledge and rigorous mathematical models of the smart energy network environment. Simulation results based on real-world data show that (i) integration and optimised operation of the hybrid energy storage system and energy demand reduce carbon emissions by 78.69% improve cost savings by 23.5% and improve renewable energy utilisation by over 13.2% compared to other baseline models; and (ii) the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art self-learning algorithms like the deep-Q network.

The European Commission published its hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe on the 8th July 2020. This strategy brings different strands of policy action together covering the entire value chain as well as the industrial market and infrastructure angles together with the research and innovation perspective and the international dimension in order to create an enabling environment to scale up hydrogen supply and demand for a climate-neutral economy. The strategy also highlights clean hydrogen and its value chain as one of the essential areas to unlock investment to foster sustainable growth and jobs which will be critical in the context of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. It sets strategic objectives to install at least 6 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolysers by 2024 and at least 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolysers by 2030 and foresees industrial applications and mobility as the two main lead markets. This report provides the evidence base established on the latest publicly available data for identifying investment opportunities in the hydrogen value chain over the period from 2020 to 2050 and the associated benefits in terms of jobs. Considering the dynamics and significant scale-up expected over a very short period of time multiple sources have been used to estimate the different values consistently and transparently. The report covers the full value chain from the production of renewable electricity as the energy source for renewable hydrogen production to the investment needs in industrial applications and hydrogen trucks and buses. Although the values range significantly across the different sources the overall trend is clear. Driving hydrogen development past the tipping point needs critical mass in investment an enabling regulatory framework new lead markets sustained research and innovation into breakthrough technologies and for bringing new solutions to the market a large-scale infrastructure network that only the EU and the single market can offer and cooperation with our third country partners. All actors public and private at European national and regional level must work together across the entire value chain to build a dynamic hydrogen ecosystem in Europe.

The modelling underpinning the scenarios for the EU long-term strategy did not include hydrogen trade. The assumption was that each Member State (MS) supplies its own needs for hydrogen and synthetic fuels. The goal of this study is to develop a model to undertake optimal geolocation of hydrogen production between MS including the possibility to trade hydrogen and therefore use the RES potential more optimally and decrease energy system costs at EU level. Specifically the new model helps to identify the geo-location of: 1. Renewable energy production (PV wind biomass hydro) 2. Location of RES and hydrogen production facilities 3. Storage infrastructure also for natural gas and storage technologies i.e. batteries pumping etc. 4. Infrastructure by road and pipeline

The cement industry is a building block of modern society and currently responsible for around 7% of global and 4% of EU CO2 emissions. While facing global competition and a challenging business environment the EU cement sector needs to decarbonise its production processes to comply with the EU’s ambitious 2030 and 2050 climate targets. This report provides a snapshot of the current cement production landscape and discusses future technologies that are being explored by the sector to decarbonise its processes describing the transformational change the industry faces. This report compiles the current projects and announcements to deploy breakthrough technologies which do require high capital investments. However with 2050 just one investment cycle away the sector needs to commercialise new low-CO2 technologies this decade to avoid the risk of stranded assets. As Portland cement production is highly CO2-intensive and EU plants are already operating close to optimum efficiency the industry appears to be focussing on carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies - while breakthroughs in alternative chemistries are still being explored - to reduce emissions. While the EU has played an important role in supporting early stage R&D for these technologies it is now striving to fill the funding gap for the commercialisation of breakthrough technologies. The recent momentum towards CO2-free cement provides the EU with the opportunity to be a frontrunner in creating markets for green cement.

The Green Deal Industrial Plan aims to boost the competitiveness of Europe’s net-zero industry and to accelerate the transition to climate neutrality. The Plan is based on four pillars: (1) a predictable and simplified regulatory environment; (2) faster access to funding; (3) developing skills for net-zero industry; and (4) open trade for resilient supply chains.