Nuvera Fuel Cells Change the Lift Truck Motive Power Business
A major automobile manufacturer has been successfully powering its mixed fleet of 200 lift trucks (25% Yale) with hydrogen fuel cells for the past five years.
As an early adopter for hydrogen fuel cells, the company built an onsite hydrogen generator at one of their facilities. They recognized that fuel cells are a clean way to produce power and it is easily produced.
Although they used a competitor’s fuel cells, the customer decided to partner with Nuvera as their fuel cell provider.
Nuvera was able to bring power alternatives for lift trucks to a global provider of materials handling equipment — providing a fuel cell solution designed for reliability, productivity and efficiency.
INITIAL CHALLENGE
While the customer was very happy with the performance of hydrogen-fueled lift trucks, they were interested in evaluating fuel cell providers. So when their leasing agreement for 16 fuel cells came up for renewal, they sent a request for proposal. Although the quotes received were competitively priced, Nuvera stood out because it is owned by the Hyster-Yale Group. The customer was excited to see that a forklift manufacturer was bringing some competition into the fuel cell market - they requested a demo and were pleased with the performance of the fuel cells.
OUR SOLUTION
Nuvera installed 16 class-one fuel cells into the Yale® ERC045VG trucks, which performed well against the rest of their fleet powered by their existing fuel cells provider. The auto maker plans to obtain 80 more fuel cells to replace their current fuel cells coming to lease end.
THE RESULTS
The customer is looking toward the future and is optimistic about no longer needing to sign a 10-year lease for fuel cells. The change led to big results:
- Refuel in as quick as three minutes
- A one-to-one truck to fuel cell ratio – no extra batteries
- Reclaim warehouse space with no charging stations
- Minimal lift truck downtime and zero emissions