A new IEA report analyzes the growth of Fuel Cell Truck Deployment & Manufacturing
International Energy Agency (IEA) released the 2023 edition of their Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP-2023) which provides a comprehensive inventory of the current state of global clean energy supply chains, covering the areas of mining; production of materials like lithium, copper, nickel, steel, cement, aluminum and plastics; and the manufacturing and installation of key technologies. The report maps out how key sectors may evolve in the coming decades as countries pursue their energy, climate, and industrial goals.
The report identifies key technology areas (from solar and wind to EVs and fuel cells) and analyzes their current global manufacturing capacity, planned capacity additions, the shortfall in capacity in 2030 relative to the Net Zero Scenario (NZE), and lead times for selected mass-manufactured clean energy technologies. One of the technology focus areas the report focuses on is fuel cell trucks. According to the IEA ETP report global deployment of fuel cell trucks will reach 400,000 in 2030 and 2.7 million in 2050 (in the Net Zero Emissions Scenario).
Expansion projects indicate a 7x increase in global fuel cell truck manufacturing capacity to 90,000 trucks per year by 2030 – 50% of that required in the NZE Scenario. Over the same period, manufacturing capacity in the U.S. would grow 10x times to 25,000 trucks per year.
Also, ETP reports that the total PEM fuel cell (stack) capacity is to exceed 300,000 systems/year in 2022. Fuel cell manufacturing announcements indicate that automotive FC manufacturing capacity will increase fivefold to 90 GW/year by 2030.
In 2021, 900 FC Trucks were sold. However, the global fuel cell truck manufacturers’ claimed nameplate capacity is currently 13,000 trucks/year, and is expected to exceed 90,000 with an average lead time of 1 year, according to the announced manufacturer projects. When compared with the required capacity of 180,000 by 2030 in the IEA’s Net-zero scenario (NZE), this results in a 50% gap between the planned capacity and required capacity for fuel cell trucks.
IEA ETP notes that: “Fuel cell manufacturing is expected to be able to keep pace with growth in demand, since new factories can take as little as a year or two to bring on line.” This report also provides additional analysis for other sectors and a detailed assessment of the supply chain and infrastructure, mining and material production, lead times involved in technology manufacturing and installation, and identifies gaps according to current capacity expansion plans for the specific supply chains.
Source: IEA ETP 2023 (link).
Summarized by A. Kusoglu