Herten, 13 May 2022. At AGR, one of the first hydrogen-powered collection vehicles for commercial waste in Europe is currently starting its trial operation. The AGR-H2-Truck will now collect commercial waste from AGR customers in the RVR area and provide important information on hydrogen driving behaviour. "This is an important milestone for the environmentally friendly conversion of our truck fleet to an environmentally friendly fuel. In this way, we are breaking new ground in sustainable waste disposal," says Joachim Ronge, Chairman of the AGR Management Board.
The original DAF truck was manufactured in Emstek (Lower Saxony) by Terberg HS with a special body (Millenium XXL) and then converted into an e-truck with electric drive and fuel cell technology in Belgium. The four tanks on the roof of the vehicle hold around 20 kg of hydrogen and the three-phase electric motor is expected to achieve a range of around 200 km. In the fuel cells, the hydrogen is combined with oxygen. This chemical reaction produces electricity that drives the electric motor. From the 'exhaust' comes only clean water as the rest.
Equipped with an overhead emptying device, THE AGR hydrogen truck is part of the European project HECTOR (Hydrogen Waste Collection Vehicles in North West Europe), in which seven waste management companies from five countries in Europe are involved. In addition to AGR, Duisburger Wirtschaftsbetriebe from Germany are also partners in this project. The European project aims to bring together important experiences on the everyday use of hydrogen trucks and thus promote the use of hydrogen in logistics.
"Hydrogen-based mobility is an important step towards emission-free collection logistics. The experience we gain here at AGR comes from technical progress in the construction of H2trucks and thus also the interested municipalities," explains AGR Managing Director Joachim Ronge. "With our H2-Truck and our 15 H2Passenger cars, together with the planned hydrogen production based on renewable energies and the high-performance filling station also planned, we are taking a further step towards sustainable disposal safety, energy efficiency and climate protection."
Background hydrogen collection vehicle:
This acquisition was also made possible by participation in the EU-funded INTERREG project 'HECTOR'. The HECTOR project stands for the use of "hydrogen disposal vehicles in North-West Europe" (NWE regions).
As part of this project, seven waste collection vehicles with fuel cell drive will be used in five NWE regions: Scotland, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. The aim of the project is to make it clear that fuel cell vehicles are an effective solution for reducing emissions from road traffic.
Aberdeen City Council is coordinating the project and the INTERREG North-West Europe programme is supporting it with a grant totalling 5.5 million euros.
