RICARDO HELPS THE UK GOVERNMENT ASSESS THE ROUTE TO ZERO EMISSIONS FOR HEAVY-DUTY GOODS VEHICLES

The projects funded under this programme will run real-world trials of battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell technologies for the largest categories of heavy goods vehicles side by side and at scale over a five-year period.

This will provide the UK Government with the essential evidence needed to make strategic, long-term national infrastructure decisions to decarbonise the nation’s road freight sector and provide required greenhouse gas emissions savings. The project has been awarded through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and is administered by Innovate UK.

The UK Government has recognised that whilst smaller vehicles are anticipated to be electric, there is a lack of clarity around which zero-emission technologies to adopt for larger vehicles operating over longer distances which, combined with currently high vehicle purchase costs, uncertain operational impacts and lack of infrastructure, is holding back private and public investment in research and development (R&D), business model development, infrastructure, and vehicle adoption. This lack of a clear path risks delays to zero-emission HGV deployment at scale and therefore endangering the potential to meet the UK’s commitments around decarbonising the road freight sector.

To ensure that the UK’s road freight fleet can sufficiently contribute to meeting the UK’s net zero objectives by 2050, and that sales of new non-zero emission HGVs are phased out by 2035/40, the UK needs to decide by the mid-late 2020s which technology and infrastructure mix will decarbonise long-haul road freight.

The Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Programme, which is a seven-year major new R&D programme, has therefore been created to address this. For the technical evaluation project, Ricardo will work with partners Costain and the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight (SRF) to provide independent monitoring and technical evaluation of the projects awarded under the programme. The projects will trial at scale the priority technologies of battery electric and/or hydrogen fuel cell HGVs which are proven options for decarbonising the most difficult to decarbonise long-haul heavy goods vehicles, 40 – 40 tonne trucks.

The new programme will treat battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles as front-runner technologies and will undertake a demonstration of the technologies consistently side by side to allow evaluation of: energy consumption and emissions savings potential; business acceptability; vehicle and infrastructure cost, reliability and ease of implementation; efficiency, safety and reliability; refuelling provision and convenience. It will thus provide the data to make decisions with confidence on which technology, or technology mix, is likely to be successful in a UK context allowing the Government and industry to accelerate the deployment of these technologies.

This project is the latest example of Ricardo acting as a trusted technology and evidence advisor for the Government in the zero-emission heavy-duty sector. Ricardo is also currently working on the ZEFES (Zero Emissions flexible vehicle platforms serving the long-haul Freight Eco System) programme, co-funded by the European Commission, which addresses the decarbonisation of long-distance freight transport by demonstrating real-world applications with battery electric vehicles (BEVS) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) across Europe.