Cummins is best known as a leading maker of heavy-duty diesel engines, primarily for the transportation sector, so many people were surprised when the company was named the maker of the world’s largest proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser recently commissioned at an Air Liquide hydrogen plant in Quebec, Canada.

But Cummins has been preparing for a zero-emissions future for half a decade, while laying out a comprehensive hydrogen strategy late last year. "Over the past five years, the company has developed and acquired significant capabilities in electrified powertrains, battery design and assembly, battery management, fuel cells and hydrogen generation,” said Cummins' chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger on the company’s Hydrogen Day on 16 November.

And it was the acquisition of Mississauga, Ontario-based Hydrogenics in September 2019 that provided Cummins with the basic technology and expertise to construct the 20MW PEM electrolyser for the Quebec plant. But its new subsidiary—in which Air Liquide also has a 19pc stake—had to successfully scale up its Hylyzer PEM electrolyser technology from 1MW to 5MW for the four-skid system to do so. “The 5MW modular electrolyser exceeded our expectations of lowering the total cost of ownership of the plant,” company spokesperson Katie Zarich tells Hydrogen Economist.

Cummins also produces a line of containerised alkaline electrolysers for on-site hydrogen production at industrial sites, manufacturing plants and hydrogen fuelling stations. But these plants tend to be small, typically producing 100-750kg/d of hydrogen compared with 8.2t/d for the PEM electrolyser system at Air Liquide’s Quebec plant. To date, Cummins has installed more than 500 of these small-scale alkaline electrolysers around the world.

Fuel-cell vehicles

On the mobility front, Cummins has big plans for hydrogen-electric systems, according to Amy Davis, vice president of the overarching company and president of the firm’s new power business. But despite heavy-duty trucks being the company’s core market—it is the number-one maker of diesel engines for 18-wheelers in North America—the company sees trains and buses being a significantly greater commercial opportunity in the shorter term.

On the mobility front, Cummins has big plans for hydrogen-electric systems

“Because the cost of fuel cells and hydrogen is projected to remain above that of internal combustion engines for at least ten years, we anticipate adoption of fuel cells to begin in markets where the cost of these items, as a proportion of total cost of ownership, is lowest,” Zarich tells Hydrogen Economist. “This is why we have focused on a market such as trains where the powertrain and fuel cost represent 50pc of the total operating cost—much lower than the heavy-duty truck market, where it is above 80pc.”

The Hydrogen Council projects fuel cells will gain a modest 2.5pc share of the global heavy-duty truck market by 2030 compared with 10pc for buses and 10pc for trains currently powered by diesel engines. Davis sees these figures as realistic.

The EU sees hydrogen as the future of heavy-duty haulage, on a more ambitious timescale. In December, the EU’s Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking public-private partnership published an exhaustive report detailing how heavy-duty fuel cell trucks can seize a sizeable chunk of the continent’s haulage market within the next decade. To meet the EU’s 2050 emissions target, all trucks sold from 2030 onwards must be zero-emission vehicles.

Cummins is working hard to make hydrogen fuel-cell powered heavy-duty trucks economically competitive with diesel-powered ones, having received more than $7mn from the US Department of Energy to support its R&D efforts. In November, Cummins and Navistar International announced they are collaborating to develop an integrated fuel-cell electric powertrain for Class 8 trucks (15t or above). They are targeting a driving range greater than 300m, lowering upfront capital costs by 35pc and performance metrics as good or better than diesel-powered equivalents.

Cummins is projecting revenue of $400mn from electrolyser sales by 2025. There are also natural technological synergies between PEM electrolysers and fuel cells given they simply perform the reverse function—water to hydrogen and vice versa. “We can leverage our electrolyser sales to fund fuel-cell technology investments and build scale across the supply chain,” says Davis.

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Author: Vincent Lauerman