At the Australian Trucking Association’s Technology and Maintenance Conference (TMC) 2025, the discussion on hydrogen as a transport fuel shifted from theory to the practical realities of getting trucks on the road. Speaking during the hydrogen trucks and refuelling session, Nathan Pearce-Boltec, Technical Solutions Engineer at BOC South Pacific, outlined the engineering, infrastructure and market challenges that still stand between concept and commercial success for hydrogen-powered heavy vehicles in Australia.
“Hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel and we can combust it safely in a conventional engine or use it in fuel cells,” Pearce-Boltec said. “But the real challenge is in how we store, move and deliver it efficiently to trucks operating in demanding freight environments.”
Engineering and operational challenges
Hydrogen’s energy density by volume is low, which means storing enough fuel for a long-haul truck requires either very high-pressure gas or liquefied hydrogen cooled to minus 253 degrees Celsius.
“It’s not an insurmountable challenge — we’re already operating vehicles on the road — but it does require significant engineering,” he explained. “To fit hydrogen storage into a truck’s footprint you need to compress it to very high pressures. The higher the pressure, the thicker the metal and the heavier the system becomes.”
Pearce-Boltec said liquid hydrogen offers better energy density and a safety advantage because it can be stored at 1 bar pressure rather than 700 bar. “If you have a rupture in a low-pressure liquid system, you’re not dealing with a jet fire or a high-velocity release across a freeway,” he said. “The technology is mature — NASA has been managing liquid hydrogen for decades — but integrating it into road transport needs careful design and safety assessment.”
Infrastructure: the missing link
BOC’s experience in Europe and Australia shows how critical refuelling networks are to the viability of hydrogen for transport. Pearce-Boltec cited examples from Austria and the UK where hydrogen refuelling stations have been built for mixed fleets of buses, trucks and forklifts. “The UK’s Kidderminster station has been operating for years — it refuels double-decker buses and street sweepers daily. It’s been successful because there was government funding and clear demand from operators,” he said.
Australia, by contrast, is still in the early stages. “We’ve got a handful of operational projects like Toyota’s Melbourne refuelling station and new sites at Kwinana and Port Kembla, but we’re a long way behind Europe,” he said. “In Brisbane there’s one public station; in Geelong there’s one more. That’s it.”
Infrastructure costs are also a major barrier. “A hydrogen refuelling installation costs significantly more than an electric charger,” he noted. “And you can’t just build a station and hope the trucks come — there needs to be an ecosystem of vehicles and offtake agreements to make the investment viable.”
The commercial reality
Pearce-Boltec said that while hydrogen is widely seen as the fuel for ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors like long-haul trucking, steelmaking and refining, the current cost structure remains challenging. “We’ve seen hydrogen prices anywhere from $15 a kilo to over $20 depending on the project,” he said. “That’s about two to three times the operating cost of diesel. Until we scale production and reduce the cost of renewable power for electrolysis, it will be hard to compete commercially.”
Government incentives could help unlock demand. “We need a clear market signal — projects need long-term offtake contracts, and operators need confidence that there’ll be fuel available and affordable,” Pearce-Boltec said. He pointed to overseas models such as California’s voucher schemes and fuel standards that combine production and demand incentives to drive uptake.
Hydrogen’s opportunity for high-productivity vehicles
Despite the hurdles, Pearce-Boltec remains confident hydrogen can play a critical role in decarbonising heavy and high-productivity vehicles. “When you look at line-haul and B-double applications, battery-electric just doesn’t fit easily,” he said. “You’d need huge battery packs and megawatt-scale charging that most industrial estates can’t support. Hydrogen can refuel a truck in ten minutes and deliver 1000-kilometre range — that’s why it’s so important for long-distance freight.”
He added that liquid hydrogen could be distributed using existing bulk fuel logistics models. “We can transport liquid hydrogen around the country and refuel fleets just like diesel today,” he said. “Once we have large-scale production and distribution in place, the economics start to improve quickly.”
Standards, skills and social licence
Beyond engineering and cost, Pearce-Boltec warned that Australia must address standards, skills and public perceptionbefore hydrogen can scale.
“Right now, there’s confusion about which codes apply to hydrogen refuelling stations and vehicle workshops,” he said. “We’ve had cases where plumbers were asked to sign off gas connections on trucks — it shows how unclear the framework is.”
He also urged the industry to improve its community engagement around hydrogen safety.
“If you asked people whether they’d accept a hydrogen refuelling station across the road from their kids’ school, most would probably say no,” he said. “That tells us we’re not doing a good enough job explaining how we manage the risks. Hydrogen can be handled as safely as diesel or LPG — but we need to earn that trust.”
A rational next phase
Pearce-Boltec described the current moment as a “rationalisation period” following the initial wave of hype. “A few years ago there was a rush of big green hydrogen projects — some made sense, some didn’t. Now we’re focusing on the ones that will actually deliver fuel to vehicles,” he said. “In the next three to four years, we’ll start to see which projects survive and which regions emerge as hydrogen transport hubs.”
For fleets, that means planning for specific use cases — back-to-base urban delivery, high-utilisation routes, and long-haul corridors with secure refuelling access.
“Hydrogen isn’t a silver bullet,” Pearce-Boltec concluded. “It’s a practical solution for parts of the market where batteries don’t fit. But we need the infrastructure, the policy support, and the social licence to make it real.”
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