Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) announced that it is renaming the TMNA R&D California office as its new North American Hydrogen Headquarters (H2HQ). The office workspace at the new H2HQ was recently redesigned for its teams working from research and development to commercialization planning and sales of hydrogen-related products and technologies. There are plans to add key features to the H2HQ campus in the future such as a flexible microgrid, sustainable customer education center and more.
Last year, Toyota Motor Corporation reorganized its hydrogen business in Japan to create what it calls “Hydrogen Factory” with the idea to bring all hydrogen-related work under one location and accelerate customer-oriented product development and production in fuel cell or hydrogen-related products. Then, Toyota Motor Europe announced its own “Hydrogen Factory” with the aim to further grow Toyota’s hydrogen business and stimulate wider roll-out of hydrogen ecosystems and infrastructure across Europe.
H2HQ will drive North American-led hydrogen initiatives and support the localization of global hydrogen-related technologies and products that include light-duty fuel cell applications, heavy-duty fuel cell opportunities, stationary fuel cell power generation, port vehicle applications and more. The facility already provides impressive research and development assets, including Toyota’s largest dynamometer (1.2 MW), a scalable test bench for stationary applications, and a hydrogen fueling station capable of providing fuel for both light- and heavy-duty vehicles. Moreover, as part of its plans to remain and grow fuel cell leadership, NA H2HQ will be home to several new projects in the coming years.
Construction has begun on a flexible microgrid that features energy sources available today, including a 230-kW solar photovoltaic system, a 1-MW stationary proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell generator, 325-kW solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and an onsite 500-kWh battery energy storage system. The microgrid is designed to support the campus’ energy needs, allowing it the ability to operate off-grid. The system is expected to be fully operational by 2026.
In the future, Toyota’s plans for the new North American Hydrogen HQ will include a sustainable education center, available for tours by reservation. The center will be a place for people to learn more about Toyota’s vision of sustainability and the role that hydrogen will play.
In a related news, FuelCell Energy and Toyota opened the first-of-its-kind “Tri-gen” system at the Port of Long Beach, California, today. Tri-gen uses biogas to produce renewable electricity, renewable hydrogen, and usable water, and was built to support the vehicle processing and distribution center for Toyota Logistics Services (TLS) at Long Beach, Toyota’s largest North American vehicle processing facility that receives approximately 200,000 new Toyota and Lexus vehicles annually.
Thanks to FuelCell Energy’s Tri-gen platform, TLS Long Beach is Toyota’s first port vehicle processing facility powered by 100 percent on-site generated renewable electricity. FuelCell Energy’s innovative fuel cell technology uses an electrochemical process that converts directed renewable biogas into electricity, hydrogen, and usable water with a highly efficient, combustion-free process that emits virtually no air pollutants.
Tri-gen produces 2.3-megawatts of renewable electricity, part of which will be utilized by TLS Long Beach to support its operations at the port. Excess electricity is delivered to the local utility, Southern California Edison, under the California Bioenergy Market Adjustment Tariff (BioMAT) program, adding a renewable, resilient, and affordable baseload electric generation resource to the electric grid.
Tri-gen can also produce up to 1,200 kg/day of hydrogen for the fueling needs of Toyota’s incoming light-duty fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) Mirai while also supplying hydrogen to the adjacent heavy-duty hydrogen refueling station to support TLS logistics and drayage operations at the port. As of January 1, 2024, California’s Advanced Clean Fleet Regulation will only allow zero-emission trucks to newly register as drayage trucks. By 2035, all drayage trucks will be required to be zero-emission.
The Tri-gen platform supports FCEV Class 8 trucks today and is there to support on-going migration to zero emission trucks between now and 2035. Hydrogen production can be ramped up and down based on demand. Since completing construction last year, in January of this year Toyota used the renewable hydrogen produced at Tri-gen to fill the first Toyota Mirai vehicles at TLS, and in April the first heavy-duty FCEV Kenworth T680 Class 8 truck was filled at the adjacent Shell HD filling station using Tri-gen-produced renewable hydrogen.
The water byproduct of hydrogen generation can produce up to 1,400 gallons of usable water per day, which is being repurposed for TLS car wash operations for vehicles that come into port before customer delivery. This helps reduce the demand on the constrained local water supplies by approximately half a million gallons per year.
