Hydrogen lorries to hit roads in Germany in 2023

GP Joule in Reußenköge in Schleswig-Holstein is aiming to put the first of 5,000 hydrogen-powered lorries on roads across Germany by mid-2023. Hydrogen can prove a viable alternative to costly batteries for heavy-duty lorries as the fuel can be filled quickly into high-pressure tanks and converted into electric power.

This comes as subsidies of up to EUR 9,000 per car are likely to have put around one million electrically-driven cars on roads by early 2023, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority.

Unitil now, the company has operated plants for generating renewable energy from the sun, wind and biomass. Petersen is now aiming to put 5,000 electric lorries in the 40-ton class on German roads by 2027 with freight forwarders as customers.

The electricity will be generated on board from hydrogen using a fuel cell. The range should come to over 400 kilometres per filling. To this end, around 150 hydrogen filling stations are needed beginning in Schleswig-Holstein.

An installed capacity of 2.5 gigawatts is needed to supply hydrogen over the next five years. The first lorries will be on roads in the second half of 2023. Another 500 in 2024, then another 1,000 every year, he added.

Clean Logistics in Winsen (Luhe), which presented its first zero-emission lorry in June is key to the project. The company in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region converts conventional lorries to. climate-friendly hydrogen drives.