Hester launched the world first forklift powered by hydrogen fuel cell in the United States

Recently, Hister, a forklift truck manufacturer headquartered in Portland, Oregon, USA, just announced that it is now piloting the first container stacker powered by hydrogen fuel cell (HFC). The pilot project of hydrogen fuel cell container forklift is being carried out in Fenix Marine Services, Los Angeles Port, USA. Container stacker is a special forklift truck, which can effectively stack empty transport containers and lift and handle heavy loaded containers.

On the basis of its industry standard H1050-1150XD-CH container stacker design, Heist has added two 45kw hydrogen fuel cells from Nuvera. The fuel cell engines produced by the company can provide power for medium and heavy vehicles. Nuvera is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hester Yale Group, the parent company of Hester. The California Climate Investment Grant issued by the California Air Resources Commission in 2018 helped support the development of this HFC powered container forklift. Hester called it "the first choice of hydrogen fuel cell power", which provides the zero emission advantage of the battery electric option, and has enough capacity for the operator to continue to move forward, avoiding the need to stop to refuel or charge during work.

The hydrogen fuel cell and the airborne lithium ion battery work together to directly power the equipment or charge the airborne battery. Jan Willem van den Brand, global market development director of Heist Industrial Vehicles, said: "Our mission is to provide customers with the innovative technologies they need to help them achieve the goals of emission reduction and performance. For some operations, lithium ion power may be the answer, but for others, hydrogen is the right choice."

Hester expects that it will take about 15 minutes to refuel the container forklift with hydrogen, which will provide 8 to 10 hours of continuous operation time. Forklifts powered by HFC will only produce water and heat. It also has the Heist patented electric container stacker energy recovery system, which can recover and store energy for load reduction and braking.