Deploying a hydrogen-powered mobility offer

In 2020, hydrogen-powered freight transport came within the scope of France Supply Chain's Manifesto for a Sustainable Supply Chain. Since then, our members of the SupplyChain4Good Lab have taken action, particularly in the field of tomorrow's mobility. Need we remind you that road transport (passenger and freight) is by far the largest emitter of_CO2 emitter in the transport sector?

Structural and environmental constraints force us to act quickly and efficiently to :

Help

the entire freight transport sector to decarbonize

Accelerate

massive deployment of green hydrogen in heavy-duty mobility

Hydrogen-powered trucks: a good or bad solution?

In 2021, our knowledge of the subject was low, our vision negative (no truck, no charging station, very high additional cost) but our members were not resolved to inaction.

As part of the energy mix essential to a sustainable world, hydrogen is ideal for certain applications, such as heavy-duty, long-distance mobility (storage capacity/autonomy, rapid recharging).

Hydrogen could be the most competitive low-carbon solution in more than 20 applications by 2030, including long haul trucking, shipping, and steel.

Extract from the Hydrogen Council report

At the Movin'On summit, we took stock of the sector's interest in H2 mobility:

Are you interested in hydrogen for heavy-duty transport?

The answer was yes from both sides, shippers and carriers.

The loaders are :

Willing to pay a high premium for a pilot project

Ready to pay a little more on a regular walk

Carriers are ready to take the plunge if shippers commit to working alongside them to control and share the financial risks.

Building a viable sustainable mobility offer

Within the alternative energy mobility community and thanks to our partner France Hydrogène and its mobility group, we are working on the variables in the equation for an acceptable extra cost*:

TCO = Price of_H2 (projections) + Cost of truck (homologation,_H2 tanks to be loaded, etc.)

*The acceptable TCO is set at +20% compared with a standard solution.

There's one classic way to reduce operating costs: economies of scale. But that's not all!

So how do you succeed?

Through collective action!

Our workshops highlighted a number of avenues and solutions for reducing prices and developing the sector.

There are, of course, other conditions for theadoption of hydrogen as a fuel for heavy-duty road transport, such as :

Overcome constraints (technology, costs, availability of trucks and green hydrogen);
Set up a "marketplace " between shippers and carriers to achieve a significant volume (between 100 and 150 trucks);
Launching drivers ;
Develop regulations.

Hydrogen truck community workshops

During these meetings between France Supply Chain's Carriers and Shippers, with the support of France Hydrogène, the group was first introduced to this new energy and its specific features. It then went on to discover the various pilot projects underway across Europe, and followed the manufacturers' road maps.

Today, the community wishes to :

Missing

to set up

Meet key players, in particular energy suppliers
Implement a tax break (lower borrowing rates for_H2 trucks, government-backed loans, etc.).
Work oninteroperability: a single access badge for all stations

Under development

to accelerate

Have a global vision of _H2 mobility initiatives in freight transport via mapping and join them
Develop a network of hydrogen filling stations, including in rural areas, to minimize empty mileage