Hydrogen remains fodder for debate

‘A lot does happen in the field of hydrogen’

Het lijkt allemaal niet spectaculair, maar believers wijzen er op dat er toch wel wat verschuift op het vlak van waterstof. Shutterstock, 2025

Is it going to be something with that hydrogen or not? The issue continues to agitate. Believers nevertheless maintain that it is a matter of time. “If you look at the prices in India and China, you can see that it’s getting cheaper,” he says.

“It is true that hydrogen is definitely still behind electric driving,” admits Stephan Bredewold of Fountain Fuel, “It is still far too expensive to refuel at the moment, but it is getting cheaper. Just go and see what is happening in India and China. There, the cost of hydrogen is dropping tremendously, and you see how volumes sold are rising. Those dynamics will soon come our way too, and we want to prepare for that.”

When the time comes, and hydrogen can be refuelled smoothly, electric, fossil and hydrogen will stand side by side, predicts the Fountain Fuel founder. “And so it will be about user cases showing which drive is best suited for what. In that, hydrogen certainly has its place, because don’t forget that all the fruit and vegetables you see at our supermarket come straight from Spain by road. Those truck drivers on that route don’t want to stop four times to load, they want to be able to keep going. Hydrogen makes that possible.”

Hours lost

Robert Goevaers of HyTrucks agrees with him. “I am convinced that hydrogen will have its role in freight transport. If you want to move to zero-emission, it’s just necessary. There is not enough power to electrify the equivalent of existing road traffic, let alone the infrastructure. So in heavy-duty transport, it will be and-and. And what is also a problem is the shortage of truck drivers. It then becomes really difficult when you lose an hour per driver and transport to loading.

This is also how JacobJan Vermeiden of MAN Truck & Bus sees it. “We need so much energy, we also need a second energy carrier. And that might well be hydrogen,” he argues. “That is why we have also developed a hydrogen-powered truck, and the first reactions to it are positive. From the beginning of next year, those will go on the road, and then you will see that they generate volume at the hydrogen filling stations that are out there. Incidentally, they also have the advantage that their payload capacity is greater than that of electric trucks.”

Grid congestion as driver

And perhaps the gentlemen should thank the overloaded electricity grid? “Grid congestion is indeed one of the drivers that can still give hydrogen a push,” nods Bredewold. “After all, the procedures to resolve it are so laborious that by the time everything is resolved, the price of hydrogen will have fallen to a competitive level.”

Because, Goevaers maintains: “in two years, ten new filling stations have been developed in the Netherlands, five hundred trucks are driving around. So quite a lot has happened, and a lot will still happen. For instance, Hyundai has already launched its hydrogen vehicle, Volvo is looking at it…”

Infrastructure

Just a statement then: the breakthrough of hydrogen depends on infrastructure, not vehicles. Again, the HyTrucks man agrees, although he sees how everything hooks together: “you have nothing on trucks if there are no filling stations, and you have nothing on filling stations if you have no trucks. At big filling stations there will be hydrogen, and if you have 40 of those in the Netherlands, you’re done.” Vermeiden nods: “Without infrastructure you are nothing, so we are pulling together as truck builders and filling station builders.”

Goevaers: “We have plans for 25 filling stations all over Europe by 2030 and we want to have 1,500 hydrogen trucks on the road by then.” “Internationally, something will happen,” confirms Bredewold. “We already have a customer with Fountain Fuel who has ordered MAN truck’s hydrogen truck, but wants to be sure he can fill up in Rotterdam, Berlin,… can refuel. So a network is being developed, and the European Union has also secured support for this.”

And will we still be in time, now that China is also trying to take the lead here? “We know that Chinese manufacturers are indeed looking very closely at what is happening in Europe,” nods Vermeiden. “We as Europeans will indeed have to watch our step.” Goevaers understands the concern, yet also sees brand loyalty: “Chinese players can emerge very quickly, but truckers still have a bond with European truck brands.”

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This article was automatically translated from the Dutch language original to English (British).

Author: Matthieu Van Steenkiste

Source: MobilityEnergy.com

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