One in five European trucks to run on hydrogen by 2030

The European Commission’s Transport Commissioner, Adina Vălean, is working on a plan to put 60,000 hydrogen trucks on the road in the next ten years.

In the green transition, hydrogen will play a critical role. By 2050, the EU expects that hydrogen will account for 10 to 24% of total energy consumption. While electric cars are projected to dominate the passenger car industry, hydrogen is predicted to play a significant part in the greening of freight transportation.

Vălean wants to nudge that transformation forward. “By 2030, every 150 kilometers on the trans-European transport network must have a hydrogen filling station,” says the report (TEN-T). “This would establish a dense network of hydrogen filling stations across the EU, ensuring enough cross-border connection and supporting the 60,000 hydrogen trucks we hope to see on EU roads by 2030,” added the European Commissioner.

The TEN-T network is a European Union initiative to construct a network of highways, railroads, airports, and water infrastructure. Its goal is to link all of Europe’s transportation networks. For the years 2021-2027, EUR 31.7 billion has been set aside for this purpose.

The 60,000 hydrogen vehicles that the Commissioner expects to see on our roads will account for 17% of the EU’s total truck fleet. That’s around one out of every five trucks.

Fuel cell and hydrogen trucks might become cost-competitive by 2027, according to the analysis on which Vălean’s submission to the committee is based, assuming the price of hydrogen falls to EUR 6/kg. The “great operating flexibility and very low refilling time” of hydrogen trucks is also mentioned.

Hydrogen appears to be an important part of the green transition, but its environmental impact raises several questions: pure green hydrogen is still difficult to manufacture, and cheaper alternatives are still damaging.