HYLIFT-DEMO DELIVERABLE 8.4

Transcription

1 HYLIFT-DEMO DELIVERABLE 8.4 MIDTERM DISSEMINATION WORKSHOP FOR EUROPEAN ACTORS Work package 8 Lead Beneficiary: HyRaMP/EHA Dissemination Level: PU Date: June 2014 Acknowledgement This project is co-financed by European funds from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking under FCH-JU Grant Agreement Number The project partners would like to thank the EU for establishing the Fuel cells and hydrogen framework and for supporting this activity.

2 R E P O R T Disclaimer The staff of HyLIFT-DEMO partners prepared this report. The views and conclusions expressed in this document are those of the staff of the respective HyLIFT-DEMO partner(s). Neither the HyLIFT-DEMO partner(s), nor any of their employees, contractors or subcontractors, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product, or process enclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe on privately owned rights.

3 CONTENTS 1 HYLIFT-DEMO WORKSHOP PREPARATION E-LOG-BioFleet project coordinator Martin Beermann, Joanneum Research HyLIFT DEMO FLT demo site Colruyt, coordinator Jonas Cautaerts, Colruyt Group FC FLT Roadshow in Hessen, Alina Stahlschmidt, HA Hessen Agentur GmbH CONCLUSIONS

4 1 HYLIFT-DEMO WORKSHOP PREPARATION As at mid-term of the project no results of the HyLIFT-DEMO locations were available, it was decided to combine the mid-term workshop with the final workshop for European actors. For this purpose FAST in cooperation with the EHA interviewed three demonstration activities in Europe, one of which was the HyLIFT-DEMO Colruyt location to develop the right focus and agenda of the workshop. The following set of questions was asked to the location coordinator: 1. Why did the demo location decide to embark on a fuel cell (FC) forklift truck (FLT) demonstration project? 2. How smooth was in your view the certification of the hydrogen infrastructure? 3. What were the most important safety issues that you needed to address? 4. Was the development of the data acquisition & analysis system in your location satisfactory? 5. Do you have any suggestions for deployment support mechanisms after the experiences in your location? 1.1 E-LOG-BioFleet project coordinator Martin Beermann, Joanneum Research Why did the demo location decide to embark on a FC FLT demo project? DB Schenker was already customer of Linde Material Handling (MH), the specific site was chosen as one of the larger Schenker terminals in Austria with 3-shift operation, and it was geographically close to the technology providers Linde MH (vehicle) and Fronius International (fuel cell system) who could support the implementation phase without delays in case of break-downs How smooth was in your view the certification of the hydrogen infrastructure? It was quite a challenge. Altogether the approval process by the responsible authorities took almost 1.5 years (similar installations based on natural gas would require 3-4 months). It depends very much on the responsible person in the regional approval authority, in this case there were a lot of additional safety measures required which were not necessary in the view of the consortium. These additional measures concentrated mainly on the reformer and hydrogen compression infrastructure and less on the indoor hydrogen refuelling station which was the first in Europe and Austria. An example for the discussion with the approval authority was if to approve the indoor refuelling station as refuelling station for vehicles or as a filling station for gas cylinders which requires additional safety measures (it has finally been approved as a refuelling station). Any future approval procedures of hydrogen refuelling stations in other sites will hopefully benefit from the experiences of this precedent.

5 1.1.3 What were the most important safety issues that you needed to address? Hydrogen reformer + hydrogen compressor + hydrogen storage: safety distances of potential fire loads from hydrogen pressurized gas cylinders. The housing of hydrogen compressor and hydrogen storage is a steel-concrete container, the hydrogen gas cylinders had to be equipped with melting fuses (normally safety valves are sufficient in the case of a fire outside the steel-concrete container potentially raising the temperature also inside the container and therefore increasing the pressure in the gas cylinders) which was one of the additional measures required. The required safety distance (min. 5m) of the reformer container (normal container) to logistic operating areas at the site could not be met. Therefore, a concrete wall had to be installed at the back-side of the reformer. Hydrogen indoor refuelling station: approval followed existing standards for natural gas refuelling stations in Austria and hydrogen refuelling standards in Germany. The hydrogen pipe (max 45 MPa) from the hydrogen storage to the refuelling station is protected by two safety valves outside the warehouse closing in case of hydrogen detection inside the warehouse. As soon as the refuelling nozzle is connected, a suction hood above the refuelling station starts operation. The hydrogen refuelling hose is equipped with a grounding wire to enable the equipotential compensation between vehicle and refuelling station Was the development of data acquisition & analysis system in your location satisfactory? The failure analysis is still ongoing. Some of the (gas and electricity flow) meters did not work properly. However, the budget for the entire hydrogen system was very limited, therefore also for the monitoring system. Still, it allows the identification of potentials for optimization which can hopefully be exploited in a follow-up project Do you have suggestions for deployment support mechanisms after the experiences in E-LOG-BioFleet? A financial support system as in the USA (tax credits for FC vehicles) seems not to be possible in the EU due to the market competition rules. In relation to enabling the market entry generally the financial support should be available for end users and not the technology providers. This could be done via funding the environmental benefit by applying the fuel cell technology with hydrogen instead of lead-acid battery vehicles. This is our role (Joanneum Research) to assess the potential of such benefits in the entire Well-to-Wheel (WTW) chain. Of course, the technology developers still need to further develop the fuel cell systems and scale it up for other vehicle classes, this will require public funding in further research and demonstration activities. 5

6 1.2 HyLIFT-DEMO FLT demo site Colruyt, coordinator Jonas Cautaerts, Colruyt Group Why did you decide to embark on a FC FLT demo project? Colruyt Group was looking for parties in autumn 2011 to deliver a fuel cell powered forklifts with CE marking. From the USA we received some overly priced offers without CE marked fuel cells. At that moment the HyLIFT-DEMO project was the only party with a reasonable offer. Colruyt Group bought two fuel cells from H2 Logic, but we were not partner in this demonstration project How smooth was in your view the certification of hydrogen infrastructure? The certification of the hydrogen fuel cell forklifts was far from smooth. H2 Logic first did not want to certify the fuel cell forklifts that were placed at Colruyt Group s distribution centre outside the FC FLT demo project. Colruyt Group refused to accept the terms and did not employ the trucks for many weeks until the issue was solved and certification was fulfilled. At the moment the certification of our new fuel cell powered forklifts (HyPulsion) is going faster. The refuelling station itself is certified by the supplier of the station, Hydrogenics. All components are certified. About permits we can inform that Colruyt Group took over the responsibility to have this fixed, because of a lack of standards and regulations. Because of the experience with CNG refuelling stations, we could re-use or adapt the way of getting the necessary permits. A guidance to deploy the required hydrogen infrastructure is urgently needed Do you miss any specific safety issues in the HyLIFT-DEMO safety report? We never heard of this report, but we would like to see this. Within Colruyt Group we created our own safety procedures together with our suppliers from the refuelling station and the fuel cell forklifts. Any standard or advice (like this document) can help us in setting up our own procedures Was the development of data acquisition & analysis system set up in your location satisfactory? No, not at all. Colruyt Group did not receive any data from the system. We have had many failures (which are still not always solved) with the HyLIFT-DEMO fuel cells and we always needed to ask for the intervention reports. About fuel cell energy / hydrogen consumption we did not receive anything Do you have suggestions for deployment support mechanisms? Deployment support mechanisms should support small numbers and not the large numbers only. The FCH JU is sometimes too ambitious in its goals for deployment projects. The goal of 200 deployments in the HyLIFT-EUROPE project in 4 or 5 sites is highly unrealistic, given the maturity of the technology in Europe and consequently the high costs. Support for implementations should be the focus

7 instead of supporting demonstrations of technology. Colruyt Group is missing (European) standards and regulations for the deployment of hydrogen infrastructure. Like Colruyt Group has a non-dedicated refuelling station, we are missing regulations so that the station can be used by different applications and thus using the same standard. 1.3 FC FLT Roadshow in Hessen, Alina Stahlschmidt, HA Hessen Agentur GmbH Why did the demo location decide to embark on a FC FLT demo project? To inform and interest potential FLT operators about FC FLTs How smooth was in your view the certification of hydrogen infrastructure? For the roadshow a mobile refuelling solution was used, but this took a long time to organise What were the most important safety issues that you needed to address? The training and instruction of the drivers and other key personnel was very short and basic, so not all were confident in using the FC FLTs Was the development of data acquisition & analysis system in your location satisfactory? Not applicable as the demo sites were only in operation a few days Do you have suggestions for deployment support mechanisms after the experiences in your location? Experience was not altogether positive and the next FC FLT demonstration activities in Hesse will need a longer preparation and co-funding. 7

8 2 CONCLUSIONS As experiences in all the addressed locations point to the need to improve the technical support infrastructure as well as to the need for closer cooperation between the OEMs and component (FC) suppliers and no specific recommendations for EU stakeholders with regard to the set-up of local FC FLT projects were indicated, it was decided to focus the workshop on the experiences in the rest of the world, a brief summary of the experiences in HyLIFT-DEMO and the possibilities of future funding for these projects in the on FCH2 JU programme.