A new $100 million hydrogen funding effort from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) includes plans for building an industry-ready heavy-duty fuel-cell truck.
Daniel Simmons, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, made the announcement Thursday during an online forum held by The International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy (IPHE).
“We will set a five-year goal to prove our ability to have a fully competitive heavy-duty fuel-cell truck that can meet the demands of the durability, cost and performance requirements of the trucking industry,” Simmons said.
Simmons did not mention any OEMs or industry partners that may help build the truck. The other part of DOE’s latest hydrogen investment includes funding electrolyzer research and development.
Electrolyzers use electricity to create hydrogen and oxygen through a process called electrolysis. Besides being a renewable means of production, DOE and others, including fuel cell truck manufacturer Nikola, believe electrolysis has a shot at bringing down the cost of the fuel. The average cost of hydrogen, according to the California Fuel Cell Partnership, is $5.60 per gasoline gallon equivalent.
Simmons said costly hydrogen infrastructure challenges are a barrier to fuel cell adoption and that DOE aims to “diversify the hydrogen supply by lowering the cost of hydrogen production from electrolysis.”
Currently, the majority of hydrogen produced in the United States is extracted from natural gas, which is considered a fossil fuel.
