Meet the Members: Hexagon Purus

Hexagon Purus has been a supporting member of the Hydrogen Council since 2018. Why did you want to join the Hydrogen Council? 

We are all part of an important and growing industry with common goals and objectives. Industry associations are important institutions – platforms to discuss and develop standards, policies, positions, and other areas of common interest. They are also a great platform to network, cooperate, learn from other companies in the same industrial space.

We were early out in our focus on hydrogen, having developed our first hydrogen storage cylinder capable of 700 bar operating pressure back in the early 2000s, long before this was an industry. And despite being a rather small company at the time, we felt that we needed to assume our part of the responsibility for the overall establishment and development of the industry – and we are excited to be part of the Hydrogen Council, where we meet like-minded companies with a similar purpose to address climate change and accelerate the transition to a net zero society.

What is the biggest priority to realise a hydrogen economy? How can the Hydrogen Council support?

Realizing the hydrogen economy is an enormous challenge. We need to establish an entire ecosystem more or less from scratch within a decade´s time – and on a massive scale. No one company can do this alone – all parties in the ecosystem rely on each other to develop this in concert, which is a complex challenge. 

Take mobility as an example. The technology itself is not the main barrier – we have the necessary technology to manufacture vehicles that run on hydrogen. One barrier is cost – it is expensive because vehicle volumes are mostly in the hundreds and the thousands instead of in the millions. But costs will come down significantly once we get to industrial scale – and authorities around the world are using a combination of regulation and incentives to ease the transition.

The main barriers today are the limited availability of green hydrogen and an insufficient fuelling station network. Without sufficient hydrogen availability, OEMs will not make vehicles available because customers won´t buy them. So we need to work in concert as an industry to accelerate the production of green hydrogen and the availability of that hydrogen at the pump. This is where the Hydrogen Council can help – by leading the discussion, idea exchange and collaboration between industry participants and authorities which can lead to truly impactful and synergistic partnerships.

What Hexagon Purus hydrogen project are you most excited about?

We are very proud of our strong commercial success across several mobility end-use applications and the hydrogen infrastructure business, which has been growing very strongly in the past year. Simultaneously, we now have several supply agreements with OEM customers for both BEV and FCEV platforms. One of those is also a very important milestone for the industry, namely Nikola’s rollout of their fuel cell powered class 8 heavy-duty truck. The long-haul heavy-duty trucking segment is one of the mobility segments where hydrogen makes the most sense, where BEVs can only cover a minority share of the use cases.

The Nikola TRE FCEV is the first hydrogen truck to go into large series production, so it´s the first test of how this technology will work in real life. A successful demonstration of the viability of the technology in actual use will for sure unlock demand and accelerate adoption, so it´s important for the industry that they succeed. And as the storage cylinder supplier to Nikola, we are of course incredibly excited to see them succeed.

What are your top three hydrogen-related goals and ambitions for 2023 for Hexagon Purus and the wider industry?

One of our highest priorities for 2023 is to expand our production capacity – we plan to open five new manufacturing facilities this year, on three continents, to execute on our customer commitments for next year and beyond.

A second is quality – supporting our customers in bringing innovative and cost-effective solutions to market, solutions that demonstrate that zero emission works.

A third is to continue educating the market and engaging with stakeholders – we need to build faith in the zero emission future with players across the ecosystem – fleets and vehicle owners, fuel providers, technology suppliers, and the investors that fund the industry players in the pre-profitability stage – and we must continue to motivate people to join the journey towards the net zero society.