Plug Power, which wants to be a leader in the market for “green” hydrogen made from water and renewable energy, has developed a new type of off-the-grid charging station for electric trucks and commercial vehicles. While that may be good news for drivers of Tesla vehicles, it may irk the company’s CEO Elon Musk, a long-time hydrogen critic, because the elemental fuel powers it.
Latham, New York-based Plug debuted its station at the Advanced Clean Truck Expo on Monday in Anaheim, California, the country’s biggest trade show for battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The station combines an 18,000-gallon liquid hydrogen tank with a stationary fuel cell system Plug makes and which produces more than 60-megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s enough to charge more than 600 EVs before needing to be refueled, according to the company.
Growing sales of electric cars and trucks raise concerns about straining the grid and will require fleet operators to make costly investments in upgraded electric infrastructure to support the charging of large numbers of trucks, vans and delivery vehicles simultaneously. Plug thinks that stations powered by zero-emission hydrogen that can be trucked in, even to relatively remote locations, will be an attractive alternative.
“Customers are approaching Plug for hydrogen power generation options, and we expect this offering to be one of the largest applications for stationary use this year,” said Jose Luis Crespo, the company’s general manager of applications and global accounts. The first station will be set up at the end of the second quarter for a customer he didn’t identify.
Musk, who’s used hydrogen to fuel SpaceX rockets in the past, has ridiculed fuel cells as “fool cells” for many years and described hydrogen, which can be costly to produce and store, as an inefficient clean power source. “It’s important to understand that if you want a means of energy storage, hydrogen is a bad choice,” he said at a Financial Times conference in May 2022.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on Plug’s plans.
Plug, which is supplying Amazon with enough hydrogen to power thousands of warehouse forklifts and other vehicles, will supply the stationary fuel cells and hydrogen for customers that want to use off-the-grid charging solutions but won’t own the stations, Crespo said. Future customers could also include EV charging companies.
Admittedly, it’s not the most efficient use of hydrogen, Crespo told Forbes.
“You're converting electricity into hydrogen, transporting it and then converting the hydrogen into electricity to put it into a battery. So a lot of steps,” he said. Instead, the rationale is to provide an option to make it easier to keep a battery fleet rolling. “It's one of those cases where there's a need for speed and a need for electricity and there not a lot of options.”
“It's one of those cases where there's a need for speed and a need for electricity and there not a lot of options.”
Over time, some stations will likely dispense hydrogen directly for use by fuel cell trucks as well as making electricity to charge battery vehicles, he said.
Musk has dialed back his skepticism about the universe’s most abundant element, at least a bit this year. At Tesla’s investor day webcast, the mercurial billionaire said the company was looking at green hydrogen for applications such as making steel.
“Some amount of hydrogen is needed for industrial processes,” Musk said during the March 1 event. “My personal opinion is that hydrogen will not be used meaningfully in transport. It shouldn't be.”
"like this" - Google News
May 02, 2023 at 02:02AM
https://ift.tt/DXoFEba
Elon Musk May Not Like It But Plug Power Plans Hydrogen-Fueled ... - Forbes
"like this" - Google News
https://ift.tt/1jTZAiR
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment