Matt discusses his role and involvement with regards to the hydrogen economy, industry challenges, what he is looking forward to at the event and why it is important for engineers to attend.
Q: Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to the hydrogen economy and this conference?
Matt Shillito (MS): The Advanced Propulsion Centre supports a range of zero carbon automotive projects, including projects using hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen ICE technology. As a Project Delivery Lead at the APC, I work closely with teams delivering these R&D projects and have seen the challenges in bringing hydrogen technology to maturity and converting the learning into commercially successful products. In the last three years I have worked with companies delivering FCEV buses, fuel cells, pressure vessels, H2ICE engines, and fuelling systems.
Through the R&D and manufacturing scale-up programmes run by APC, I see there is strong appetite for UK companies to develop and supply a range of technologies to enable hydrogen to support the zero-carbon revolution in transport. From my perspective in the auto sector, I also recognise that this is a truly multi-disciplinary challenge and that automotive is only a part of the overall picture for hydrogen. I’m looking forward to bringing to the conference the APC’s latest thinking on the UK’s opportunities in the HGV supply chain, including hydrogen technologies. But I’m also excited to hear from colleagues elsewhere in industry to understand how we can work cross-sector to make sure the hydrogen economy will help us to reach our net-zero goals in the most effective way.
Q: What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for utilising hydrogen in your sector?
MS: In my experience, the two significant challenges to hydrogen usage in the broader automotive sector have been availability of green hydrogen to make it a credible zero-carbon energy vector, and availability of infrastructure for re-fuelling. The UK currently faces the ‘chicken and egg’ problem of vehicle uptake relying on infrastructure availability, with no refuelling infrastructure yet existing at a practical scale. As a result, we see the UK trailing some other markets where governments have made bolder moves to support hydrogen infrastructure roll-out.
On the vehicle side, there remains a question from users around which use cases will economically benefit from hydrogen as an energy vector as opposed to battery electrification. It is generally understood that hydrogen propulsion can cover the gaps where BEVs fall short, but hydrogen technology still feels like a bigger gamble for early adopters and typically comes with higher vehicle costs. Depending on the regulatory environment there may be a niche emerging for hydrogen combustion, allowing fleet users to adopt a zero-carbon fuel at lower vehicle cost while retaining well-understood technologies and maintenance practices. These questions ultimately boil down to Total Cost of Ownership for commercial operators, with their requirement for high asset utilisation, predictable costs and reliability.
Q: What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
MS: I am excited to discuss the opportunities for UK companies to take a lead in the growing hydrogen propulsion industry, especially understanding where our current expertise and leading academic research can give a competitive edge. I am also looking forward to understanding the advances being made in energy intensive industries, marine, and aviation, to understand who the whole hydrogen picture might fit together.
Q: Regarding the utilisation of hydrogen, what would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
MS: I think the exciting thing to watch out for in automotive will be how vehicle users consider hydrogen alongside existing electrification technologies, and to see where H2 finds the best use case. Being ‘technology agnostic’ I hope to see hydrogen take the lead in those applications where it can really shine – which might be vehicle range, fast refuelling, or in settings where sufficient grid access is just not available (which could be the top of a mountain, or a busy depot in the middle of a city!) Our industry is developing diverse technology offerings to bring to the market. As end users and OEMs advance in their journey to net zero, I’m sure that the future will be diverse according to the requirements of different specific applications, including hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen combustion alongside others.
Q: Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
MS: I am looking forward to hearing from Alasdair Cairns and the other Marine sector speakers to understand how H2 can be used to decarbonise shipping as this is currently such a huge global emitter of CO2. The speakers from the aviation sector, as well as the industrial and energy sectors, will also have a completely different view on the hydrogen economy from my automotive perspective, so I’m looking forward to learning how this complex landscape will all fit together.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this conference?
MS: I think this conference will have something to offer engineers across disciplines, since all areas of engineering are affected by the transition to zero-carbon energy. The challenge for energy users across all sectors is to manage the tricky balancing act of maintaining the benefits of the last 200 years of progress, without causing further damage to our environment through continued greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is one of the key energy vectors that will allow our existing industrial activities to continue without reliance on fossil fuels, so I think we are in for a really interesting couple of days discussion on a vitally important topic.
The Engineering Challenges in the Hydrogen Economy 2024 conference will be taking place on 6-7 March at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London.
Join this conference to:
- Hear case studies from mature projects addressing infrastructure challenges for production, storage and distribution
- Identify bottlenecks and barriers in moving to a hydrogen economy
- Develop your understanding of the utilisation across different engineering sectors including rail, heavy-duty, aerospace, power generation, marine and more
- Hear from leading experts in the field and explore opportunities to collaborate on new projects
- Gain insight into gaps in the market and requirements for new technologies
- Take away lessons learned from other innovative companies to ensure optimal development strategies
- Understand how your existing equipment or products can be deployed in the new hydrogen economy
To book your place, please visit the event website.