Hydrogen technologies leader Logan Energy will today (11 May) unveil a new product, a mobile compression trailer, which aims to accelerate the uptake of hydrogen as a low-carbon vehicle fuel in the UK.
The trailer unit, the size of a horse box, can be easily attached to a vehicle and taken to wherever hydrogen needs to be moved from one cylinder to another. Its automated compressor ensures a vehicle, or cylinder, can be filled in one go with no attendance required.
Logan Energy says the product has been developed in response to demand from the hydrogen sector and particularly transport. Bus companies are increasingly using hydrogen in their efforts to achieve net zero emissions after establishing that battery electric vehicles cannot meet the requirements of all routes.
Logan Energy is already providing trailers to end users and is in serial production to deploy many more trailers not only to leading bus companies but also HGV users, and for other commercial applications.
The compression trailer will be unveiled at the All Energy 2022 conference in Glasgow today (the conference runs across 11 and 12 May). Logan Energy CEO Bill Ireland is a headline speaker at the event.
Logan Energy CEO Bill Ireland said: “This new mobile unit is the latest innovation from Logan Energy and is in response to the market. It is a much-needed solution for companies adopting hydrogen as a low-carbon fuel for their bus or lorry fleets.
“The compression unit has been designed with safety and security in mind, using our specific hydrogen engineering expertise. Our aim was to build something that overcame the barriers that many companies have getting access to hydrogen equipment where and when they need it. It is a great example of forward-thinking at Logan Energy and shows how we are helping businesses and society toward a net zero future.
The launch of the unit is the latest in a series of positive developments at Logan Energy. The company, based at Wallyford in East Lothian, has seen headcount rise from 25 to 50 in 18 months. Also, within the last year three industry-leading experts have joined its board, including former CEO of SSE Ian Marchant as chair. The appointments have bolstered the company’s executive team ahead of plans to increase international expansion.
How the trailer works…
A supply of hydrogen is connected to the inlet of the unit, which can be an electrolyser, compressed hydrogen in cylinders or trailers, or other source. To fill a vehicle, the user connects the vehicle, presses a fill button and then waits for it to be filled. To fill other systems, a similar process is followed but different connections are used. The unit has been designed to automatically fill three different pressures systems and base around filling cylinders or MCPs to 200barg using a Type 4 connection, vehicles to 350barg using a standard nozzle, or 450barg cylinders.
Other mobile refuelling systems, that transport pressurised hydrogen and decant from these to fill vehicles, are only able to use about 35% of the transported hydrogen before they fail to complete a full fill. Logan Energy’s unit has been designed to make full use of the transported hydrogen and empty the delivered hydrogen vessels thereby removing wasted transport costs and capital investment providing a far more economical solution.
The Logan Energy compression trailer can take in hydrogen at between 5barg and 450 bar, and automatically fill at 200 bar to MCPs (manifold cylinder pallet), 350 bar vehicles and 450 bar repressurisation. It comes equipped with nozzles and hoses for refilling as well as pneumatics for trailers that require it.
SOURCE: ENERGY MANAGEMENT
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