In the latest 1895 Podcast, two Extreme H leaders – Managing Director Ali Russell and Andy Welch, who is Global Hydrogen Development Manager – explain how the nascent motorsport series is crucial to driving hydrogen awareness and adoption
Those behind the Extreme E offroad racing series are set to launch its successor, the Extreme H series, later this year. The new racing series will illustrate the potential of hydrogen-powered racing and showcase the Pioneer 25 car.
1895 caught up with Ali Russell and Andy Welch of Extreme H to get the latest developments and hear more on the vision for the series, with Russell kicking things off with the sense of purpose that lies behind the project.
“The vision of Extreme H is that it’s an evolution of Extreme E, with purpose at its heart,” says Russell.
“If we’re all serious about decarbonisation, we need to have a solution to storing renewable energy – that’s either [via] a real step forward in battery technology or [through] being more effective in how we store green energy. And green hydrogen is an incredibly effective way of doing that.”
It’s also about using the championship to wave the flag for hydrogen, which on several occasions in the freewheeling chat Russell refers to a “magic molecule”.
“As an industry, it’s still not well known about – there are vehicles, but no-one knows about them, and there are a lot of challenges around mobility, production, transport and storage. We’re not against electrification – in fact, we’re using a hydrogen fuel cell in a battery to power the electric drive train.
“Hydrogen will come but what we want to do is accelerate the adoption of hydrogen technology and investment in hydrogen. We have a really interesting [and] fun testing environment, in extreme locations, and we want to incentivise people to get involved.”
And Welch explains how hydrogen’s potential extends beyond the paddock.
“Our expectation is to [run] entire events off generators and use hydrogen as the source,” he says.
“We have been through three versions of that model and upgraded the output of our fuel cell, to the point that we’re about to embark on our next event at the end of the year – where we should have a 500kW fuel cell system powering the microgrid. That would have the capability to do almost all the energy on the ground.”
Russell says that will raise the event from being Net Zero to ‘climate positive’ by putting renewable energy back into the grid. “We are not there yet. We are offsetting but that’s not the solution.
“We need more companies and visionaries to get involved. Now we are an embryo [and] we need early adopters – and that will dictate the speed that we can develop as a championship and [how quickly] hydrogen can be adopted. What’s good for Extreme H is good for all of us.”
Russell says he wants as many as possible from across the hydrogen industry to get involved.
“We will only succeed if the industry backs us.”
Click here to listen to the podcast.
