Fuel cell powered cargo pedelecs for inner-city logistics

Abstract

During the last decade the purchase behaviour of large parts of the population has changed significantly. Instead of going shopping at traditional retailers, people buy more and more things via internet. This trend has led to an enormous growth of e-commerce over the past few years, which was further intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a consequence, traditional trade related supply chains were disrupted, while the courier-, express- and parcel-market (CEP-market) grows continuously. In 2019 e.g., more than 3.65 billion consignments were transported only in Germany. This corresponds to an increase of more than 3.8 % compared to the previous year. Although the Covid-19 crisis induces considerable uncertainties for a forecast, it can be assumed that the CEP-sector will grow until 2024 by 3.6 up to 4.2 % p.a.

Many transportation duties in cities or industrial areas could be realized by cargo bicycles at lower costs, often faster and without doubts substantially more sustainable than with cars or other transport vehicles. Because of these advantages, cargo bikes recently attract great attention in urban delivery situations, triggered also by the growing transport demand from e-commerce. In combination with micro hubs, electric cargo bikes can substitute vans and trucks with combustion engines and address the different socioeconomic issues mentioned above.

For commercial application, two different approaches for the electrification of cargo bikes are promising: Electro-mobility by batteries (accumulators) or by fuel cells (polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, PEM-FC) depending on the individual application. For duty applications, fuel cell technology has many advantages towards batteries: Fast refuelling saves time, additional space for replacement accumulators is not required and waste heat can be used for cabin heating in winter. Furthermore, the environmental balance of production, life cycle and recycling, is better than in case of batteries. And finally, fuel cell powered cargo bikes are the better alternative, if high energy capacities are needed e.g. for operations over the whole day, on hilly grounds or with heavy loads.

For demonstrating the advantages of fuel cells for use as a range extender in cargo bikes, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has developed a modular system, that bases on a liquid cooled PEM fuel cell stack with metallic bipolar plates that provides a nominal electrical power output between 550 and 600 W and a peak power of 1200 W.