Hydrogen market in change

00:00:00: Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of our tech podcast by Bosch Rexroth.

00:00:09: My name is Robert Weber, and it's a pleasure to talk to Matthias Danino.

00:00:14: Welcome, Matthias.

00:00:15: Hi, Robert.

00:00:17: And Andreas Günder in California.

00:00:18: Hello, Andreas.

00:00:19: Welcome to the podcast.

00:00:20: Hello, Robert.

00:00:21: We want to talk about hydrogen and hydraulic systems, but before we do that, please introduce

00:00:28: yourself briefly to the listeners, Andreas.

00:00:31: Hello, everybody.

00:00:32: My name is Andreas Günder.

00:00:33: I'm 35 years old.

00:00:36: I'm from Franconia, Germany, and since beginning of the...

00:00:39: Lower Franconia.

00:00:40: Lower Franconia, yeah, especially that.

00:00:42: And since beginning of this year, I'm leading our Hydrogen Center of Competence in California,

00:00:48: USA.

00:00:49: And what about you, Matthias?

00:00:51: Yeah, hi.

00:00:52: My name is Matthias Danino.

00:00:53: I'm 37 years old.

00:00:55: I was born near Cologne and studied industrial engineering, but now I'm living in Franconia,

00:01:01: near Lohr and working for Rexroth now for 10 years in the industrial hydraulics business.

00:01:07: We want to talk about hydrogen and hydraulic systems, but before we start talking about

00:01:13: technology, markets, et cetera, why is hydrogen so important for us, Andreas?

00:01:19: Yeah, so hydrogen is very essential to counter a climate change.

00:01:24: We need to get away from fossil fuels and need to shift to renewable energy like solar,

00:01:30: wind, and water power.

00:01:32: And there are a couple of challenges related to that.

00:01:35: One challenge is that the energy sources are not always there where you need the energy.

00:01:40: For example, water is very far north and solar is close to the equator, so you need an efficient

00:01:47: way to transport a high amount of energy over a long distance.

00:01:52: And the second one is the second challenge that the renewable energies are very volatile.

00:01:58: So it's not only day and night, it's also winter/summer.

00:02:02: And hydrogen is perfectly suitable for being an energy storage.

00:02:06: So both energy carrier and energy storage are important in combination with renewable

00:02:12: energy sources to counter a climate change.

00:02:16: Matthias, what role does Bosch Rexroth play in the hydrogen industry?

00:02:22: In the hydrogen industry, you need the hydrogen and you need the cars and trucks who use the

00:02:27: hydrogen.

00:02:28: But there has to be a way to get the hydrogen into these vehicles and it has to be compressed

00:02:35: to be as small, as compact as possible.

00:02:38: And that's what we are doing with our hydraulics.

00:02:41: We compress this hydrogen to a very small size.

00:02:44: I was a little bit afraid about this episode because a hydrogen episode always immediately

00:02:49: provokes the battery supporters.

00:02:51: Why is that, Matthias?

00:02:54: It is not like that.

00:02:55: I'm sure it is like that.

00:02:58: Maybe some feel provoked.

00:02:59: Mark my words after we published this episode.

00:03:03: But it does not have to be because there is not the question, is it the battery or is

00:03:07: it hydrogen?

00:03:08: Because it will be both.

00:03:10: Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

00:03:13: And for cars, I think batteries are fine.

00:03:15: You can charge them at home.

00:03:17: You can charge them overnight and then use them again.

00:03:20: But for trucks and buses, you don't want to charge them the whole night and you want

00:03:25: to charge them immediately and go on.

00:03:27: And you have a lot of space to store the hydrogen inside.

00:03:31: And that's the reason why there are also very good aspects to use hydrogen in other aspects

00:03:36: than cars.

00:03:37: What is your opinion, Andreas?

00:03:39: Yeah, so when I told my friends I'm going to the US and I'm working on hydrogen topics.

00:03:45: A lot of people challenge this question, battery or hydrogen.

00:03:49: And this question is a little bit annoying to me because it's not battery or hydrogen.

00:03:52: It's battery and hydrogen versus fossil fuels.

00:03:57: And there are a couple of differences between those two technologies.

00:04:02: And also the market need is different.

00:04:04: And I'm pretty convinced that for every market need, there is a certain technology needed.

00:04:10: So for example, the battery, you need to combine it with the electric grid.

00:04:13: So only this in combination will be similar to hydrogen.

00:04:17: So the electric grid and battery have a very high efficiency.

00:04:20: So if you have low power and you can charge it home and you can charge the whole night,

00:04:26: like Matthias said, perfect.

00:04:28: But if you need to charge fast and you have heavy loads to carry like in trucks, then hydrogen

00:04:34: has a lot of advantages.

00:04:36: So just thinking about a calculation example, so you fill up a diesel truck in 10 minutes,

00:04:42: which means you need about six megawatt of charging power.

00:04:46: So this is about more than 100 households full power or more than 4,000 hair dryers.

00:04:52: So just think about this high amount of energy needed for that.

00:04:56: And then it's a matter of what is more cost effective to do that.

00:04:59: So it's not a matter of efficiency.

00:05:01: It's a matter of what is the most economic way in the depending use case.

00:05:05: And there is a big market for both technologies.

00:05:10: So you are based in California.

00:05:12: Can you please share your hydrogen experience in California?

00:05:18: In California, I have the advantage that I can live the full hydrogen story.

00:05:22: So I arrived here beginning of this year and I bought immediately a hydrogen driven car.

00:05:27: So I bought a Toyota Mirai and why can I do that?

00:05:32: Because around Los Angeles and around San Francisco, you have a lot of hydrogen refueling

00:05:37: stations.

00:05:38: So in 10 minutes of driving

00:05:39: I have five refueling stations and I can fill up my car like it would be a diesel or

00:05:44: gasoline driven car and I can drive 500 kilometers.

00:05:48: And for me, it's perfect.

00:05:49: I'm working in engineering and sales.

00:05:51: I need to commute a lot and I don't want to live my life around my car.

00:05:55: I want the car giving me the possibility to be mobile and do what I want.

00:06:00: And for this use case, this hydrogen is perfect.

00:06:04: And one more sentence to California and hydrogen.

00:06:07: To get a technology growing, you need to overcome the chicken and egg problem.

00:06:11: And nobody builds refueling stations if there are not enough users because you don't make

00:06:16: a business case out of that.

00:06:18: But you also can't purchase vehicles if there is no infrastructure.

00:06:22: So to overcome that, you need to think about a small ecosystem and grow it in parallel.

00:06:27: And California did a really good job in that.

00:06:29: Also around San Francisco and Los Angeles, you can really drive a hydrogen car or truck.

00:06:35: And for both the truck station owners and the users, it's a good feeling and we can grow

00:06:41: this technology.

00:06:43: Matthias, how do markets differ when it comes to hydrogen?

00:06:47: If we compare, for example, California and Europe, what is different?

00:06:53: I think the main difference is how you store the hydrogen at the refueling station.

00:06:58: Oh, that's interesting.

00:06:59: Can you go a little bit more in details?

00:07:02: Sure.

00:07:03: So in Europe and also in Germany, we store hydrogen mainly in gaseous state.

00:07:09: So in gas bottles at the hydrogen station.

00:07:12: But when you use a lot of hydrogen at these stations, then you have to transport the hydrogen

00:07:18: all the time, so 10 trucks per day.

00:07:21: And that's really annoying and very expensive.

00:07:24: And that's why countries where hydrogen is used a lot like California, they are switching

00:07:28: to liquid hydrogen.

00:07:30: There you can transport 10 times the amount of hydrogen in the truck, store it liquid

00:07:35: at the hydrogen refueling station and then refuel the cars and trucks there.

00:07:41: And what does it mean now for Bosch Rexroth, for your offer to the market?

00:07:44: And how do you do that for the European market and Andreas for the US market, please?

00:08:04: Yeah, for the European and also especially for the Asian market, we have gas compression

00:08:09: solutions.

00:08:10: So the gas compression cylinders that we also use for other gas compression applications,

00:08:16: but hydrogen especially, and also the hydraulic power units and the software, all these combined

00:08:22: can be used in a hydrogen refueling station to compress the gaseous hydrogen there.

00:08:28: Yeah, in the US, like Matthias mentioned, we distributed mostly in liquid state.

00:08:33: And liquid means you need to cool hydrogen down.

00:08:36: You need to cool it down to minus 252 degrees Celsius.

00:08:40: This is only 20 Kelvin or 20 degrees above absolute zero in the whole universe.

00:08:46: So and this is really challenging.

00:08:48: So this cold temperature, you need to have very, very good equipment to deal with that.

00:08:53: And this equipment in this refueling station that can pump this liquid hydrogen is called

00:08:58: cryo pump cryo means cold and pump means increase the pressure.

00:09:04: So we are developing hydraulic driven cryo pumps for refueling stations.

00:09:10: And you are a crucial part then in the whole infrastructure when it comes to hydrogen, right?

00:09:15: Because without your pump, it's not possible to refuel the cars or the trucks, right?

00:09:20: Yes, in a car or a truck, currently you store hydrogen at around 700 bar.

00:09:26: So if you look at your tire in the car, it says two bar.

00:09:30: So it's 350 times the pressure in a tire.

00:09:33: And to get to this high pressure, you need very, very good equipment and you need a lot

00:09:38: of power.

00:09:40: And there's also where hydraulics come into place.

00:09:42: So hydraulic is known for a very high power density.

00:09:46: So we're using this technology to pump this hydrogen to 700 bar to fill it in vehicles.

00:09:53: And I think the most important thing is that it's when you have a gas station or refueling

00:09:57: station, the user or the customer wants to refuel his car or his truck as always as he

00:10:04: did with his petrol, right? Or with his diesel truck. Or am I wrong? They don't want to change

00:10:09: their behavior at the refueling station and it must be reliable. Exactly. So the best pump we

00:10:15: can do is that the user don't even recognize that there is a pump. So it pumps with very high

00:10:20: efficiency. It pumps so silent that you can't hear it. It doesn't break. So very high reliability.

00:10:26: And it's hidden somewhere in the station and you have the same look and feel like with your

00:10:29: diesel or gasoline car you show up your station and you need in for a car about three minutes,

00:10:35: five minutes and for a big truck about 10 minutes and then you're ready to go. So you don't need to

00:10:41: think about that anymore. So from a technological point of view, everything is solved or am I

00:10:47: wrong? No, it's right at the beginning. So hydrogen is really old fuel. Actually the first

00:10:54: combustion engine run on hydrogen. But then we stopped this development completely because

00:10:59: there was no market. Fossil fuels were so cheap to deal with and so easy to deal with. So now with

00:11:04: the change to stop climate change, shift to renewables, the hydrogen story comes up again.

00:11:10: But now we need to develop every component in the whole value chain. And the feedback from our

00:11:18: customers is that especially this pumping system because it's the most the highest challenge component

00:11:24: in the infrastructure because of this high pressure and cold temperature is the weakest point

00:11:28: currently. So they said, please, Rexroth, you know how to deal with high pressure and hydraulics. You

00:11:33: have all this engineers sitting around. Can you please take care about making a good product

00:11:38: that meets our requirements? So based on this market need and our competency, we recognize it's

00:11:45: a perfect match. And we need to jump into that and develop the missing puzzle piece in the hydrogen

00:11:50: infrastructure. What is your technological USP when it comes to the pump? What is so special? What

00:11:57: is the magic, the rocket science? I would say most important is really the efficiency. Because of

00:12:04: this, this is related to this cold temperature of hydrogen. And it starts to boil immediately when

00:12:11: it sees a little bit of energy. This energy can be based on compression, can be based on bad insulation.

00:12:17: And then when this liquid turns into vapor, you need to let it go to the atmosphere. So you don't

00:12:23: want to lose this hydrogen. So you need to work on a really, really efficient pump. This is priority

00:12:28: number one. Then priority number two is the reliability. Because of this cold temperature,

00:12:34: the high pressure, it's really tough for all components. So it's really material science,

00:12:39: simulations, a lot of testing you need to do fluid dynamics, everything, fluid dynamics,

00:12:46: finite element methods. So we're using all of that theoretical and practical possibilities to

00:12:53: engineer an incredible pump with a high reliability. You need to reach a couple of thousand hours

00:12:58: between maintenance to really make a positive business case out of that. And also to make the

00:13:02: customers happy that when they show up at the station, it just works. So and the third one is

00:13:08: you need a pump that has a high pump mass flow that you get the same look and feel like a diesel

00:13:14: filling. Matthias, I want to come back to Europe because I want to ask you where are other markets

00:13:21: developing for hydrogen and why? Yeah, Europe is developing straight right now. So it's stopping

00:13:28: a little bit and it depends on the regulations and the governments. But in Asia, there are some

00:13:34: very interesting countries, for example, India, China, but also South Korea and Japan. And the

00:13:40: reason for this is these countries also want to be zero to neutral or emission neutral in the

00:13:46: future. But they cannot produce all the energy by themselves. It's not possible with solar or wind

00:13:54: because the countries are small and they have a lot of or a huge population. And that's why

00:14:00: they have to import it. But you cannot import energy via cables through the ocean or you can,

00:14:08: but just so we talk about liquid, right? Liquid or gaseous, okay, okay, yeah. But you can do it via

00:14:15: pipelines or with chips. And that's why they are focusing on hydrogen also for their traffic system

00:14:22: for the trucks and buses. And that's very interesting for us. Andres, I want to come back to

00:14:27: California. What can we learn from California in Europe when it comes to hydrogen from your point

00:14:32: of view? You need to overcome the chicken-egg-problem. And you need to establish a lot of

00:14:41: refueling stations and motivated users at the same time. And this you can do really good if you

00:14:47: focus on small ecosystem here It's like I mentioned around San Francisco and Los Angeles.

00:14:53: And by doing so in California, there are about 16,000 hydrogen cars, each refueling station

00:15:00: sells between 100 and 500 kilos a day. So it makes fun for both the refueling station owner

00:15:07: and the car user. And you get runtime on your equipment, you can improve the whole value chain.

00:15:13: And this small exploration area helps to make a scalable business case out of that.

00:15:21: So in Germany, for example, we have a lot of stations we have more than California, but all over.

00:15:27: But where I live in Germany, close to Würzburg, there's only one refueling station. So if it's

00:15:33: down... even if I, so I'm an early adopter, I'm an engineer, I love to get the newest 

00:15:38: shit on the market. And it doesn't matter for me from the beginning, what the economy is for this

00:15:43: use case. And there are a lot of people out there. And you need to address those in order to get your

00:15:49: whole business case running. Of course, it needs to improve and you need to be economic,

00:15:53: because the majority of people need to make business decisions based on economy.

00:15:57: But in Germany, I wouldn't even be able to get a hydrogen car because there's no refueling station.

00:16:03: So here we can a lot about this exploration and innovation culture of California.

00:16:08: Matthias, Bosch Rexroth is now a part of the hydrogen world. And you need partners and you will

00:16:16: become a solution provider. That's a totally different business approach than before when

00:16:22: we talk about hydraulics and Bosch Rexroth or am I wrong? No, that's completely right. So in the past,

00:16:29: maybe the approach, how do you handle that? Yeah, in the past, I think the approach was more

00:16:35: to develop something. And after two or three years, come to the market and say, this is our

00:16:41: solution. Do you like it? But now... buy it, please. But now we are cooperating with customers or you

00:16:49: could also say partners, because we start developing products with them and we start testing it with

00:16:57: them. And we have a final solution that already fits to this customer. And he's very happy about it.

00:17:04: And then we can go to the market and present this solution also to other customers,

00:17:08: where we already know it's a fine solution that is working on the market.

00:17:12: Andreas, what was for you the most interesting news of the last two months when it comes to

00:17:19: hydrogen in Europe or in USA or in Asia? I think I was really surprised about an enormous funding

00:17:29: in... happened in Germany. So the two things. So first of all, Germany approved the national hydrogen

00:17:35: grid. This was very important to get the infrastructure developed. And the second thing

00:17:40: that I would call the most interesting is Federal Germany and Baden-Würrtemberg gave Daimler Trucks

00:17:47: 250 million funding for hydrogen trucks. And this is really sounds like a real game changer

00:17:54: in the market. There's a lot of funding. What is on your agenda for the next weeks? Andreas, what do

00:17:59: you have to do? Share a bit what you do in research, maybe what kinds of technique you're looking for

00:18:06: a little bit for our listeners? Yeah, so I'm located here in California, but my development

00:18:12: team is half here in California and half in Germany. So I really need to manage to get those

00:18:17: two teams working very efficient together. So I stand up early, communicate with Germany,

00:18:23: and then later I make my meetings here in the US. And it's a perfect combination. So here

00:18:29: the challenge is really to prove that our USPs really come into place. So efficiency, reliability,

00:18:36: the high pump mass flow, we have our test bench here. We need to do a lot of things on testing.

00:18:40: We need to bring it in first refueling stations within the next couple of months. And in parallel

00:18:46: work together with the German engineering team to step by step increase the technology and also

00:18:53: increase our portfolio for that. Because at the end, it's not only one cryo pump, there are small

00:18:58: stations, big stations, there are stations that can make liquid direct fill that stations that

00:19:03: can make high pressure fill. So there's a whole portfolio needed for that. So I'm trying to manage

00:19:09: all of that. And Matthias, last question is what is in your agenda for the next weeks, months,

00:19:14: when it comes to hydrogen? To have a close look what's happening in Germany and in all the other

00:19:21: countries and to get really involved in the countries where the hydrogen business is

00:19:26: strongly growing like South Korea, Japan and other Asian countries. Matthias, Andreas, thank you very

00:19:33: much. It was a pleasure talking about hydrogen, all the best to California and all the best to you,

00:19:39: Matthias in Lower Franconia. Thank you. Bye.

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