Glasgow’s ambition to become Britain’s first zero net carbon city have moved forward following an agreement with ULEMCo to deploy hydrogen dual fuel vehicles.
Hydrogen conversion specialist ULEMCo has commenced the largest single deployment of hydrogen dual fuel vehicles following Transport Scotland’s funding of 20 gritter/multi-purpose vehicles.
Cleaning up the streets with next generation ultra low emission trucks
Around half of the fleet manufactured by James A Cuthbertson Ltd will be converted to hydrogen dual fuel, while the rest will be hydrogen enabled from the start. Based on the gritters’ normal duty cycles, around a third of the energy is expected to come from hydrogen, resulting in the same proportion of emissions being saved. Glasgow City Council is said to be in the process of securing ‘green hydrogen’ for the fleet to refuel. It is also expected that other air quality emissions like NOx will be greatly reduced compared with the base vehicle.
This is the first set of conversions for gritter lorries and is ULEMCo’s largest volume order to date. According to the Aintree-based company, deploying fleets of hydrogen vehicles in this way builds the base load for hydrogen infrastructure investment, creating a market for hydrogen fuel that will make it easier for other local authorities and businesses to switch fuels.
“The environmental impact of large diesel-powered utility vehicles is very high in city centres”, said Amanda Lyne, Managing Director of ULEMCo. “We are delighted to support Glasgow City Council in its ambition to become Britain’s first zero net carbon city, and help to ensure that its entire fleet of 2000 vehicles is carbon free by the end of the decade.”
“We see this development as part of a wider roll-out of hydrogen fuelled fleets across the country, and are really pleased that our first such order is with a local authority so close to our factory in Biggar”, said Ewan Tolson, Sales Manager at Cuthbertson. “Our long history and experience of designing and manufacturing specialist highway vehicle bodywork combines well with ULEMCo’s specialist expertise in deploying hydrogen fuel systems – creating a completely UK-manufactured solution.”
Does anybody have real-world data on the efficency of hydrogen vehicles? How much fuel is lost from say a 10 year old lorry during resting periods? Customer reports of the battery drain from older electric vehicles whilst resting are looking decidedly worrying for global warming.
Is the hope of NOx reduction based on fact or just hope. Hydrogen burns at higher temperatures than diesel which my well form more NOx in an engine.
Converting electricity to hydrogen at 70% efficiency and then using that hydrogen in an internal combustion engine at 33% efficiency. gives an overall thermal efficiency of 23% compared with using the electricity in a zero carbon non-polluting electric vehicle at about 90% thermal efficiency. So EVs would use 1/4 ofthe electricity of these hydrogen trucks. Electric vehicles would be simpler and therefore cheaper than hydrogen vehicles with their supporting infrastructure. Short range duties like gritter trucks are idea for electric drive in cold circumstances. The only down side would the absence of loads of waste energy to heat the cab for the grittter driver.