Argonne building new R&D facility to test large-scale hydrogen fuel cell systems
The facility will help prove or disprove the validity of hydrogen as a viable fuel for transportation applications.
With hydrogen emerging as a key strategy to decarbonize transportation and combat climate change, Argonne National Laboratory is building a research and development (R&D) test facility to develop and independently test large-scale fuel cell systems for heavy-duty and off-road applications.
A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or other fuels to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity. When hydrogen is the fuel, the only products are electricity, water and heat. The Argonne facility will test fuel cell systems to be used in transportation applications including trucks, railroad locomotives, marine vessels, aircraft, and vehicles used in the agriculture, construction and mining industries.
When the facility comes online in fall 2025, industry will be able to access a dedicated location and support staff to test and validate polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems ranging from 150 to 600 kilowatts.
Few manufacturers have their own capacity to test and validate such large-scale fuel cell systems, and many have expressed interest in the ability of Department of Energy (DOE) national labs to provide such test capabilities. Argonne’s facility will emulate powertrains for all on- and off-road heavy-duty vehicles by operating in a hardware-in-the-loop environment leveraging the laboratory’s internationally recognized Autonomie software for application duty cycle commands.
The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is funding approximately $4 million to support the effort. The goal is to improve the performance, durability, reliability and efficiency of heavy-duty fuel cell systems while lowering the cost.
“The facility will serve as a national resource for analysis and testing of heavy-duty fuel cell systems for developers, technology integrators and end-users in heavy-duty transportation applications including [OTR] trucks, railroad locomotives, marine vessels, aircraft and vehicles used in the agriculture, construction and mining industries,” explains Ted Krause, Argonne’s Laboratory Relationship Manager for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Programs. “The testing infrastructure will help advance fuel cell performance and pave the way toward integrating the technology into all of these transportation applications.”
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