By Andrew Cunningham, CEO of GeoPura

UK transport is swiftly electrifying, and ready access to renewable power from the grid is the optimum solution to support that. However, the current distribution grid cannot match demand and doesn’t extend to remote locations.

The bottlenecks and limited reach have the potential to stifle EV expansion for fleets and personal transport. To get around this issue, alternative charging infrastructure is needed. Green hydrogen is poised to bypass the bottlenecks EV charging is currently facing.

How tight is the squeeze on the grid?

The UK has roughly 1 million electric cars on the road and charging demand is growing massively. The current rate of 25,000 chargers a year, based on Zapmap’s data, suggests that the UK is not on track to meet its 300,000 public charger goal by 2030.

Many factors are causing a bottleneck in infrastructure growth, and the scale of the transition is one of them.

Currently, a distribution network operator normally allocates 3.5kW of power to one house.

Public charging is typically 50kW and up, and in 2023 100kW rapid chargers grew at 68% year-on-year.

The size of the transition is clear: fitting each new public EV charger is the equivalent of powering a new housing estate.

For fleet managers, charging infrastructure companies, and local authorities, delays are making the problem worse.

Some charging companies and UK councils are using diesel or HVO-fuelled generators to augment their grid capacity due to delays, while others, such as York Council, have parked their £8 million EV bin lorry fleet because the infrastructure hasn’t kept up with demand.

On top of this, the electrical distribution grids were never designed to support EV transportation.

Additional technology is needed to augment its reach, capacity, and bypass delays.

Fast charging, powered by 100% renewable hydrogen, can support the grid and overcome these challenges.

Charging hubs powered by 100% renewable green hydrogen

While diesel generators have been traditionally used to address the bottlenecks in charging infrastructure capacity, we now understand the negative impact they have on the environment, air quality and public health.

Green hydrogen is an energy-dense, zero-emission fuel that can be used to bypass the bottlenecks in UK charging infrastructure growth while reducing emissions.

Green hydrogen is effectively stored renewable energy from sources such as wind and solar, so it is 100% renewable and zero-emissions – the only by-products are pure water and heat.

Hydrogen can be used to power generators that provide zero-emission power beyond the electrical distribution grid, boosting capacity and supplying large amounts of sustainable power where needed.

For example, one hydrogen power unit that delivers 250kVA of three-phase, 400V critical power, and is backed up by a 260kWh battery system, can run ten fast charging posts 24/7.

Hydrogen-powered EV chargers are an attractive solution, enabling renewable energy to be effectively stored as hydrogen fuel, and dispatched to be used outside of the squeezed electricity distribution network.

Supplementing the existing charging infrastructure with hydrogen is equally important due to the mismatch between available capacity and need at many charging sites.

Some places have capacity and don’t need it. Many others severely need it and don’t have it.

At these locations, the grid needs to be augmented with additional power from hydrogen to deal with peaks in charging demand.

For example, holiday seasons now routinely cause record numbers of electric vehicles charging on long journeys.

Hydrogen-fuelled generators combined with batteries can even out peaks in demand and avoid queues and delays by accommodating additional fast charging posts.

Soon, over half of the bays in a car park or fleet depot will require EV chargers. This can be easily achieved using a hydrogen-fuelled generator, which can be deployed temporarily until the required grid capacity is installed or used as a permanent grid top-up.

For high-demand locations, such as large commercial fleet depots, they can be combined to achieve up to 2MW of fully redundant power.

Deploying hydrogen generators bypasses the widely reported delays in getting connected to the electrical distribution grid too.

In many cases the connection approval queues are years long, even beyond 2030, and for local authorities and fleet managers with sustainability targets, hydrogen is a significantly faster solution than waiting for expensive grid upgrades.

Hydrogen charging calling for duty

The Ministry of Defence, like many organisations, operates a fleet beyond the grid infrastructure. It is also committed to achieving a zero-emission white fleet by 2027.

When trialling solutions for off-grid and overseas operations, it deployed three HPU hydrogen-fuelled charging hubs to supplement the grid power at strategic locations across the UK.

The trial allowed the Ministry of Defence to bypass capacity, reach, and delay bottlenecks.

Air Vice Marshall Richard Hill, Director of Defence Support Major Programmes, commented on the successful hydrogen charging hubs saying, “Using hydrogen to power some of our white fleet electric vehicles is a significant step forward in accessing a broader range of sustainable energy sources. This will provide resilience and mobility in off-grid and compromised-supply locations.”

For mission-critical fleets, having fully redundant power helps to boost the resiliency of the charging infrastructure. Hydrogen-fuelled fast chargers can act as a backup source, as well as critical power for other functions, in case of outages.

Accelerating hydrogen into the future

While grid-connected remains the best option for EV charging, acting outside or alongside the grid, green hydrogen-fuelled charging hubs can help to avoid the limits on the electrical distribution grid capacity, reach, and immediately overcome delays.

As a 100% renewable, zero-emissions source of energy, it supports drivers and fleet managers to switch to electric vehicles.

Looking to the future, as the Ministry of Defence has shown, organisations can create fully redundant and resilient charging solutions for critical fleets that can scale to sites of any size.