An Environmental and Economic Assessment of Introducing Hydrogen to a Combined Heavy Duty/Off-Road Vehicle Fleet in the UK

The emissions from many industries have fallen over the past decade, however transport has failed to follow suit and has stayed consistently high, now being the largest source of CO2 in the UK. Although the light duty sector is transitioning towards electrification, heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) lack suitable technology and still rely heavily on diesel, with disproportionately high CO2 emissions alongside criteria air pollutants. One potential solution for heavy duty transport is hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

The aim of this project is to investigate whether hydrogen can be a suitable fuel for emissions reduction in the heavy-duty sector, whilst also remaining economical. This is achieved by first conducting an economic assessment using Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis, which is then followed by an environmental investigation in the form of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using SimaPro software with the widely recognised inventory database, Ecoinvent. Vehicle emissions software COPERT is also used to support this modelling further. Results compare and analyse the economics and life cycle emissions of a mixed fleet of FCEV heavy duty on-road and off-road vehicles to battery electric and diesel counterparts, and considers 6 vehicle types (cars, buses, trucks, tippers, refuse vehicles, and forklifts) and 14 fuel scenarios, offering a novel contribution to existing literature. In this work, results are generated from both a general perspective and a fleet-owner perspective using real mileage figures from UK council fleets. Results identify the cost components and life cycle stages with the greatest impact on FCEV competitiveness and a sensitivity analysis helps determine conditions under which hydrogen is most favourable, in addition to the prediction of future scenarios.

Results show that for most vehicles hydrogen is not cost-effective under base case conditions. Only hydrogen forklifts are cheaper than their diesel counterparts, whilst generally electric powertrains show the lowest costs overall. Despite this, BEVs may incur indirect costs from payload losses and efficiency drops in cold weather which could offset their savings, so should be considered before making final decisions. Further, the cost competitiveness of FCEVs can be improved if favourable policy and regulatory conditions are applied, like purchase grants and fuel price reductions. Hydrogen shows greater promise in terms of sustainability as several FCEV HDVs show lower life cycle emissions than diesel and electric counterparts. Similar to their costs, emissions can be reduced in the future by varying the modelling conditions, like the use of a decarbonised electricity grid, for example.

In general, hydrogen can significantly reduce the emissions from HDVs, but their costs are most likely going to restrict their uptake unless favourable conditions are implemented. If these conditions are not met, other technologies may help achieve net zero targets sooner.