Hydrogen and diesel fuel mix powers Flannery Plant Hire Cat 320 excavator in UK first conversion

BIG Hydrogen news as Flannery Plant Hire mixes it with HVO, a drop-in replacement for Diesel in a UK first conversion of two ‘Site Ready’ Caterpillar Inc. 320 excavators.

Both machines now work on a 60% HVO and 40% Hydrogen fuel mix and can also switch to HVO only operation.

In this exclusive interview, Peter Haddock talks with Ben Hammond, Flannery Sustainability Manager at the Operator Skills Hub near Birmingham.

He explains how Flannery, in partnership with UK-based ULEMCo Ltd and green hydrogen supplier GeoPura, has created a workable solution for the UK market.

It's all part of a Government project called Element 1, a cross-industry consortium led by main contractors BAM UK & Ireland and Skanska and funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Over the last 12 months, ULEMCo engineers and the Flannery team have been working together to convert the machines, which are now in final testing.

They will soon be on site with BAM UK & Ireland and Skanska, who have already installed the Hydrogen infrastructure needed to operate their individual machine. 
 
Talking about the project, Ben said: “We chose the latest 20 tonne Cat 320 from dealer Finning to retrofit as it’s one of the most popular machines on our fleet. And we have been monitoring the diesel models performance through our telemetry system for some time.
 
“The key to the success of this project was to achieve the levels of productivity with a diesel and hydrogen fuel mix that matched the standard diesel model performance.

"The difference, of course, is a significant reduction in Carbon emissions of up to 40% as we use a mix of HVO and Green Hydrogen.
 
"The standard mix is 60% HVO and 40% Hydrogen. However, depending on the application, this can be altered to 60% Hydrogen and 40% HVO.

"The process is also simple, as we use tanks to store the hydrogen on the machine, which is rated in size to deliver a 10 hour productive working shift.

This means the tanks themselves are capable of holding up to 505ltrs, which at 350bar hold 12kgs of Hydrogen.
 
“So, in other words, we will be working the machine hard with very low levels of idle time, which is what our customers demand. The beauty of this approach is the flexibility of fuel usage.

"For our first two retrofitted models, the operator can switch between a hydrogen and HVO fuel mix and an HVO only by using a control panel in the cab.
 
“And as we move forward with the trials, this will be done automatically. This also means that if we require the machine to be used on a site that doesn’t have hydrogen, then it’s just the flick of a switch back to HVO.

"The system itself is also simple to maintain, which is important for our engineers, and it works on the combustion of Hydrogen, not a fuel cell approach, which again simplifies the process.”
 
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