NanoSun Leads the Drive Towards Green Hydrogen Fuel Adoption

Far from being just an element on the periodic table, hydrogen has become the latest focus for the industrial gas industry because of its potential to be used as a low-carbon fuel.?Hydrogen is a gas that can either be burned, or used in fuel cells, to create energy and offers a potentially greener alternative to petrol and diesel.?

But where does hydrogen come from? And how do we get it???

Currently around the world, hydrogen is distributed by the industrial gas industry.??In the UK, BOC is the largest provider of industrial gases, and hydrogen is transported around the country in cylinders and tube trailers.??

Demand for hydrogen has skyrocketed in the last few years; particularly of late given the sharp increase in petrol and diesel prices.??With the government’s current strategic vision preventing the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035, and the drive towards electrification, hydrogen fuel has become an appealing green alternative.

Be wary however of energy suppliers who avoid using the term “green” hydrogen in their strategy - it’s likely another form (colour) of hydrogen which is produced using fossil fuels or from natural gas.??In other words, these other forms of hydrogen cannot be used to achieve net zero long term.???

Electric car adoption in the last 5 years has been working relatively well, with more than 250,000 EVs on UK roads, yet the issue comes from much larger and heavier vehicles which are struggling to reap the benefits from battery energy alone.??

At the end of last year, the manufacturer JCB decided to invest ￡100 million to produce hydrogen engines after concluding that their much larger machinery requires fuel rather than battery energy to function.??

So the engines are created, but where can hydrogen vehicles be fuelled up?

This is a chicken and the egg scenario.??Vehicle manufacturers have held off making more hydrogen vehicles because of the lack hydrogen fuel stations.??Currently, there are only 10 hydrogen filling stations in the whole of the UK, with most of them around London. Logically, more fuel stations will only be built once more vehicles are on the road… Sounding more like a catch-22???

Mobile green hydrogen fuel stations may be the answer.

NanoSun is an engineering company who aims to break that problem by producing mobile containerised hydrogen fuel stations.??The mobile fuel stations will transport green and low carbon hydrogen from where its produced in the UK, to where vehicles need to be refuelled.??The company is relatively young, having only been established in 2017, however they’ve managed to expand rapidly throughout the UK, and in recent years have began to serve continental Europe.

The Gofor team had the pleasure of meeting the NanoSun staff at the Commercial Vehicle Show last month, where they spoke to the company about their vision for the expansion of hydrogen transportation of the future.??Their drive to provide a new method of transporting energy, despite such challenging times for the automotive industry, highlights a need for forward-thinking organisations to devise new ways to meet net zero in the coming decade.??

The idea that there exists enough consumers who are interested in hydrogen energy, yet who aren’t being served by the industrial gas industry, opens up the gateway for innovative companies to flourish, and hopefully, meet the ongoing demand for greener energy and a greener future.??????

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