Based on focus group discussions with truck end-users and logistics providers, the paper sets out conclusions from the discussions with companies such as Amazon, Nestlé Waters, DB Schenker, and Kuehne-Nagel.

The paper founds that hydrogen freight will be required to complement battery vehicles in order to achieve full decarbonisation of operations due to the possibility of fast refuelling and applying less stress to grid constrained areas.

H2Accelerate also said that end user were willing to accept that vehicles are likely to be more expensive in the early stages of roll out, and infrastructure more limited than the incumbent diesel system.

According to the collaboration, ‘several’ end users stated that they would be happy to pay more for fuel cell trucks in a short term trial until there is scale improvements and supportive policy to allow hydrogen-powered trucks price parity with diesel.

In the paper, H2Accelerate concluded that, “Hydrogen is required to manage imbalances in energy generation and consumption in the renewable-dominant energy system of the future. It is also one of the very few options for bulk transport of renewable energy around the world.”

And “Hydrogen can solve the challenge of decarbonising the heavy-duty long-haul sector, for which there are essentially no other viable options which can work for all users.”

David Burns, Vice-President of Clean Energy Development at Linde, a H2Accelerate member, said, “The findings of this study confirm what we have been hearing from industry partners and customers for the past year or so: the heavy-duty transportation sector is on board with using hydrogen to effectively replace fossil fuels.

“We know that the technology us there, we have delivered over 200 fuelling stations around the world and successfully fuelled more than 1.5 million vehicles.

“Together with the H2Accelerate members, we are now working on scaling up the technology and building a robust infrastructure to enable the heavy-duty transport sector to operate with zero emissions, reliably and at a competitive cost.”

The H2Accelerate collaboration, formed of Daimler, IVECO, Volvo Group Linde, OMV, Shell, and Total Energies, have set out to create the conditions for the mass-market roll-out of hydrogen trucks in Europe.

Read more: TotalEnergies joins H2Accelerate to scale-up green hydrogen for trucking