The US Department of Energy has awarded $3.4 million to the Houston Galveston Area Council (HGAC) to fund the demonstration of heavy duty fuel cell trucks. This project will be based at the Port of Houston and represents the largest deployment of fuel cell heavy duty trucks to date. Alongside HGAC, other project participants include the Environmental Defense Fund, Vision Industries Corp., Total Transportation Services Inc., and Air Products.

The demonstration fleet will include 20 Tyrano™ trucks fuelled with hydrogen which will be sourced from local natural gas, and will measure the operational cost effectiveness of the fuel cell technology in this application. The project expects to see the following benefits:

• Emissions reductions of 39 tons of NOx and 0.8 tons of particulate matter per year.
• Displacing 200,000 gallons of diesel per year
• Assist region in achieving its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS)

The trucks are expected to enter operation later in 2013.

   

Source: Environmental Defense Fund.

 

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2013/march/fuel-cell-trucks-coming-to-texas