Hydrogen as alternative for forest industry transports (H2Timmer)

The forest industry is one of Sweden’s largest transport users. For timber transport heavy duty trucking is the most important carriage technology. The forest industry is responsible for about 17% of the Swedish cargo transport on the roads. An alternative for the forest industry’s conversion to fossil-free transport is to use renewable hydrogen that can be produced by electrolysis from renewable electricity.

Like electricity, hydrogen does not generate any local emissions when being used. Production of hydrogen can potentially have synergies with pulp and paper mills which use oxygen and have local production of electricity.

This pre-study project aims at giving an evaluation/assessment of hydrogen as an alternative for the transport work carried out by the forest industry and aims at comparing to battery electric, biofuels, and diesel. The whole value chain including production, compression, storage and use is included in the analysis which considers cost, energy efficiency, and CO2-emissions from a well-to-wheel perspective.

The study is financed by Trafiverket through Triple F and is conducted by RISE together with 6 forrestry industry companies, three vehicle industry companies, and two system integrator companies. Participating companies and organisations are Sveaskog, SmurfitKappa, Metsä Group, Holmen, StoraEnso, BillerudKorsnäs, AB Volvo, Volvo Penta, Volvo CE, Nilsson Energy, Euromekanik, Energiforsk and Skogsindustrierna.

Find enclosed the final report from the project. The report is in Swedish with an English summary.