CSIRO pitches vision for Australian hydrogen refuelling network for long hauls

Australia will need to put significant money and research into hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in order to get a long haul transport industry off the ground, says commonwealth research institute CSIRO.

CSIRO, which is opening its first refuelling station in Victoria before the end of September, says in a new report that Australia must focus on hydrogen-powered transport as well as electric or be left behind internationally.

Although the report, cowritten with consultancy GHD,  identified four technical areas where existing equipment must be improved for it to work well in Australia, Dr Patrick Hartley, leader of CSIRO’s Hydrogen Industry Mission, says long haul hydrogen transport has potential.

“We see a future with both battery electric and hydrogen vehicles having a place in the low carbon world,” he told RenewEconomy.

“While research is needed to bring down costs and increase efficiencies in both hydrogen vehicles and refuelling infrastructure, the technology is actually at a reasonably mature stage, and so countries around the world are already rolling it out.”

Hartley says elements of battery vehicles such as the challenges of battery weight, recharging time, and network demands “might push the need for other options like hydrogen in some regions and applications”.

“Internationally, hydrogen buses, trucks and trains are under development, and hydrogen cars are being used as taxis in some countries because of their fast refuelling time.

“Like everything in the energy transition, it’s a big challenge, and we need to move as fast as possible, but I subscribe to the adage: ‘where there’s a will there’s a way!’”

Narrowing field of use

And ‘will’ will be required: the number of vehicle applications where hydrogen was once touted as a solution are narrowing quickly as trials prove electric is cheaper and easier.

In July, a German state said it was focusing on battery-only trains because they were “cheaper to run” than hydrogen fuel-cell alternatives, which it had been testing.

In June, former chief scientist and author of Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy Alan Finkel, admitted that hydrogen cars are unlikely to be sold in great numbers because they simply can’t match the convenience and performance of the battery electric car.

And also in June BHP said it was going with electric to transition its heavy hauler mine site trucks off diesel, as it would be cheaper than hydrogen.

Transport makes up 18.6 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and heavy vehicles are a key contributor.

Worth thinking about

But given the size of the funding prize pool for hydrogen projects in Australia – $2 billion from the federal government alone – there is cash available for figuring out the problems inherent in building out a refuelling network.

Despite being about 80 per cent less efficient in energy use than an electric vehicle, fuel cells are appealing as they are much quicker to refuel, have a greater range between refuelling stops and long distance trucks can carry more goods because their fuel is lighter and smaller than a similarly powered battery.

The ‘Hydrogen vehicle refuelling infrastructure’ report compared the different hydrogen storage and dispensing options available, and found the country will need to move to centralised offsite production and distribution of hydrogen in order to refuel vehicles at scale.

It priced hydrogen in this scenario at $6.65 per kilogram, if the hydrogen comes from the largest production plant modelled that could make 4,500 kg of hydrogen a day (the amount needed to do 66.7 fills for large trucks).

More research needed

The report flagged four areas where more research needs to happen on the technical side, including that some vehicles manufacturers are saying they’ll start making long haul trucks with a 1000km range that use hydrogen at 700 bar pressure. Today, most use 350 bar which is much cheaper to achieve with current compressor technology.

If hydrogen is ultimately going to be trucked around the country, as petrol and diesel are today, then ideally it will be liquified.

However, liquefying, transporting and storing liquid hydrogen is currently very expensive, the report noted.

More research needs to be done into the ideal blend of hydrogen into gas pipelines so it can be transported via existing networks, although this method is “difficult to justify” given the high cost of doing so, and ongoing studies to improve compressing and cooling technologies need to happen to reduce capital and operating costs of running refuelling stations.

“Research is already underway globally in all aspects of hydrogen production, compression/storage, distribution and utilisation,” Hartley says.

“We see international research collaboration as a way of accelerating these efforts, which is why we recently developed an international hydrogen research collaboration program with the federal government.”

Australia currently has five hydrogen refuelling stations in operation and another 20 planned or under construction, says cowriter of the report, GHD Advisory’s Shawn Wolfe.