Hyer Power - Hydrogen extended range Powertrain for Special Purpose vehicles including Ambulances, Fire Engines and Road Sweepers

This 3.5 year project which is a collaboration led by ULEMCo Ltd, the specialist hydrogen commercial vehicle company, with partners Technical Services (UK) Ltd for cooling capability, Altair Ltd for vehicle energy system modelling, along with Emergency One for the Fire-Engine solutions and Oxfordshire County Council for the customer input, trialling and dissemination, will develop and test to a full manufacturing-readiness level, a zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell based range extension system for electric drivetrains, which is applied to a series of "world-first" special purpose EV vehicle solutions, namely an Ambulance, a Fire-Engine and an HGV Road-Sweeper. Taking the learning from the prototyped and tested ZERRO Ambulance, displayed at COP26, it creates a tool-kit and "plug & play" set of component modules, utilising the mass-produced Toyota Gen2 fuel cell power-pack and demonstrates its flexibility, accelerated design process, performance and utility to extend range for these applications.

Hydrogen is essential for viable zero-emission solutions in these applications, particularly emergency response because of the fast and immediate refuelling that enables the vehicle to be "fit-to-go" and have the full flexibility of range required for the job. Due to packaging constraints and the overall energy demand needed for not only the vehicle drivetrains as well as the onboard equipment, unlike battery only EV, hydrogen solutions are the most cost-productive route to transition to zero-emission fleets. The conventional OEMs are not focussed on developing zero-emission solutions for these applications in the timescales that meet the UK's Net-Zero targets. This project, which enables both supply chain growth in the project partners and the UK specialist vehicle manufacturers, is therefore strategically important in delivering the UK's obligations for GHG reduction by 2050, and it's corresponding clean growth opportunity.