Sweden’s Volvo Group and Vancouver’s Westport Fuel Systems (TSX,Nasdaq:WPRT) have formed a new joint venture that will be located in Vancouver and which will develop components for hydrogen combustion engines for the heavy duty trucking sector.
Volvo and Westport showcased their new product Thursday at the University of BC, where the fundamental fuel injection technology that Westport developed was born three decades ago.
Unlike the hydrogen fuel cells that Ballard Power Systems (TSX:BLDP) makes, Volvo and Westport will be making components of internal combustion engines similar to natural gas combustion engines, but which will burn hydrogen.
Westport developed the high-pressure direct injection (HPDI) system used in internal combustion engines that use hydrogen or biofuel. Westport also makes components for hydrogen fuel systems, such as high pressure tank valves.
Under the joint venture agreement, Westport will contribute its HPDI assets and intellectual property, and Volvo will acquire a 45 per cent interest in the joint venture with an initial investment of US$28 million, and a potential additional investment of US$45 million.
"B.C. is Canada's clean-tech capital," Terry Beech, Liberal MP for Burnaby North-Syemour, said at Thursday's event. "It already represents tens of thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars in annual revenue, and this is a tremendous next step for our eco-system."
Certain sectors may never be able to be electrified with battery power, which is why hydrogen will play a critical role in decarbonization for certain hard-to-abate sectors. The weight of the batteries needed for long-haul trucking makes battery electric power impractical, for example.
Hydrogen provides greater energy densities, and produces few to no emissions, so it is considered the most likely source of power for long-haul trucking, and other niche areas, such as locomotives.
One of the advantages of hydrogen as an energy source – apart from the fact that it produces few if any greenhouse gas emissions – is its versatility.
Hydrogen can power a vehicle in two fundamentally different ways. It can be run through a fuel cell to generate electricity to power the vehicle, or it can be burned in an internal combustion engine.
Because hydrogen combustion engines are similar to combustion engines for natural gas, there’s not much modification needed in the manufacturing process.
As the American heavy duty truck maker Cummins (NYSE:CMI) notes: “Four-stroke hydrogen internal combustion engines (Hydrogen ICE) operate on the same cycle as regular natural gas engines and have almost the same components -- engine block, crank, cylinder heads, ignition system, installation parts, and so on.”
This lends to economies of scale in the manufacturing process, compared to hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
Other advantages is that hydrogen combustion engines can burn lower grades of hydrogen (fuel cells require ultra pure hydrogen), and ICE vehicles perform better with heavier loads than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
