Hydrogen, much like diesel, can be used in two ways to deliver energy to construction site. It can be used directly in plant, through an internal combustion engine or fuel cell. Or it can be used in a generator, to provide electricity for lights, accommodation and to recharge batteries.
At the Tilbury Hydrogen Hub, a green hydrogen production and demonstration project at the Port of Tilbury in Essex, green energy specialist GeoPura is tackling both of these uses, supplying modular, containerised systems that can generate hydrogen both through electrolysis to deliver energy through fuel cell powered generators, and to plant using a refuelling station. As well as producing hydrogen from local power sources, such as solar panels, the company’s Hydrogen Power Units (HPU), can be used to deliver large volumes of the gas from production sites further away.
HyKit, whose executive chair is JCB scion Jo Bamford, tackles a different problem: delivering hydrogen around sites, much like a traditional diesel bowser. Unlike GeoPura’s modular solution, which is designed to work from a dedicated area on site, HyKit’s mobile hydrogen bowser works without a compressor, with just a small battery needed for its control system. (See interview, p47).
Another firm, ULEMco, has also been developing systems for getting hydrogen molecules where they are needed. The company’s HyTANKa is, as the name suggests, more like a diesel tanker. The mobile refuelling system, considerably larger than HyKit’s, can bring hydrogen to site and be used for plant refuelling. With two compressors, it can also refill its own tanks from lower pressure sources.
ULEMco’s smaller refueller – closer in its design to HyKit’s hydrogen bowser – is small enough for easy transport in a 3.5-tonne van. It can be used to provide hydrogen where it is needed, with the company suggesting it for hydrogen vehicle trials, non-road mobile machinery or operations in areas with limited refuelling infrastructure.
GeoPura’s starting point as a business was the need to balance the UK’s energy demands with the fluctuating generation of renewables. The company was formed in 2019, after team members had worked on research across the zero emissions space, explains chief hydrogen business officer Matt Barney. Hydrogen was just one way among others of easing the energy transition.
Like Toyota’s Jon Hunt (see p44), Barney sees great potential in hydrogen’s ability to store energy for long periods. “We were really thinking about the role that zero emission fuels should be playing in large-scale energy storage,” he says.
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But before hydrogen can be used to store excess power for renewables or new nuclear plants, it needs to be generated at scale. Barney sees the company’s HPUs as a way to achieve this in a commercially sustainable way, as it develops large scale hydrogen generation, including at its High Marnham and Doncaster sites. “They’re highly reliable and efficient. They provide incredibly stable, highly critical energy. So we built quite a strong market around those,” he says.
While HPUs offer clear environmental benefits, Barney says customers are driven by other advantages. “There’s a material advantage beyond the diesel generator. That reliability, the fact they’re really quiet, that you can get planning permits because of that,” adds Barney. Indeed, they have been used heavily at concerts and in filming, where noise is a key concern.
GeoPura is producing its own hydrogen at Tilbury, and plans to increase production using local solar power. But it has much larger production sites, explains Tej Chadeesingh, technical project manager at the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) for GeoPura. “We’re producing hydrogen [at High Marnham] at about 30bar. We then compress that up in our MEGCs [multi-element gas containers, also known as tube trailers] to 300bar for delivery to site.
“That’s our gas storage. That can be a source of hydrogen for whatever you want.”
GeoPura’s HPUs are the main use case. “Those are fuel cell powered generators,” explains Chadeesingh. “But at Tilbury they are also being used as a hydrogen refueller. Another unit is designed first as a compressor, compressing gas up to higher pressures – typically vehicles operate at either 350bar or 700bar.
“The refueller then fills vehicles under a set of tightly controlled protocols regarding fill rates, taking into account size of vehicle and ambient temperature, controlling how fast you can dispense.” The nozzle itself is designed to a high standard and built to high tolerances with manufacturers WEH and Stäubli the two dominant players.
The refueller can fill hydrogen tanks with similar ease and speed to a diesel pump. “Great leaps have been made in battery electric vehicle designs,” Chandeesingh says, “But when you’re talking about plant that requires lots of energy, it’s really difficult to integrate an electric solution that is fast enough.” Hydrogen tanks and power systems, whether fuel cell or internal combustion, are also much lighter than batteries, particularly on larger equipment.
GeoPura’s system, centred on HPUs, is designed primarily to bring relatively large volumes of fuel to site. HyKit’s mobile refueller does not carry as much fuel but, with no compressor, is lighter and easier to transport: it can fit on its own towed trailer or be carried around site on a small handler. HyKit has worked with manufacturers Moffett and Brian James Trailers to develop both options.
John Vickers is HyKit’s director of engineering. He started his career at Air Products, before joining startup NanoSUN as the company was developing its own mobile hydrogen refueller: like GeoPura’s HPUs and ULEMco’s HyTANKa, this was a larger, 20ft container-sized unit. Here, he first started to learn about the cascade system that would be used at HyKit.
When NanoSUN succumbed to financial challenges, Vickers moved to HyKit. At the start, the team set up in an AirBnB near JCB’s offices. “Monday morning, we’d all turn up together, and go to the JCB offices,” he recalls. “Then back home together for dinner, continue planning the business, doing the strategy work. Next morning, we’d have breakfast together and start working again.”
The technology at the heart of the HyKit system is a cascade refueller. “That means we’re not putting any more energy into the system to get the hydrogen back out,” Vickers explains. This keeps the weight and size of the refueller down.
“We put in the gas at 750bar, and refuelling machines at 300bar. We use the pressure difference to drive the gas into the receiving vehicle.”
This article was first published in the September 2026 issue of The Construction Index Magazine. Sign up online.
The trick is making sure each of the refueller’s six tanks discharges as much hydrogen as possible.
“We can use one tank at a time and that allows us to get more hydrogen out of the refueller,” Vickers says. Each tank is connected to a manifold.
“We can choose which tank to open, when and for how long. If the vehicle’s at 50bar and one tank is at 300bar, the gas flows until they equalise at 150bar. We can then open the next tank, which might be at 400bar, and equalise to 300bar. And then the next tank might be at 500bar – equalise that, and the vehicle tank is full.”
The cascade system allows the refueller to dispense 70-75% to fill tanks at 350bar. But it can also be used to partially fill tanks to lower pressures, with a quick refill allowing equipment to be used through the day.
The system is controlled using a set of sensors and solenoids. These require a small amount of electric power to open (this is what the small battery is for) and will close automatically if power is lost, preventing leaks. Throughout its supply chain and manufacturing process, HyKit focuses on eliminating the risk of leaks.
At its factory, key components of the cascade system are inspected and installed is a cleanroom, avoiding micron-size particles that could keep a valve blocked open. And in the supply chain, the company has taken lessons from the engineers at JCB to ensure components are delivered to tight specifications.
The HyKit factory is now ready to deliver about 200 units a year comfortably, Vickers says, with space to increase this to around 500 units a year. As well as the construction sector, and kit like JCB’s hydrogen internal combustion engine backhoes, HyKit is looking to other industries: Vickers says it is seeing lots of opportunity around ports and airports.
The mobile refueller will be HyKit’s immediate focus. But Vickers sees other potential markets to address. “We’re looking at entering the market for compression,” he says. “And a mobile refueller is just a fixed refueller that moves, so we’re looking at doing fixed infrastructure as well.”
This could see the company supplying systems to forecourts, allowing for hydrogen to be scaled up gradually if and when more drivers buy hydrogen vehicles.
GeoPura’s contract with LTC will see it supply hydrogen across the project. Its first installation was with the Bouygues Murphy JV delivering the middle section of the project. It will also supply Balfour Beatty, working on the North Roads section, and Skanska, which will be building the junction at the south of the project.
“We’re contracted to deliver a minimum two and a half million kilos of hydrogen over the five years,” says Chandeesingh. “The contract is set up so that we’re ready to provide hydrogen for whatever use case they want it for, mostly split between generators and mobile plant.”
“There’s not a massive amount of plant available on the market at the moment, but the National Highways team at LTC are keen to get all of the delivery partners to sign up to using at least some mobile hydrogen plant. In terms of generators, we’re hoping a lot of them will take GeoPura’s HPUs.”
Shortly before TCI spoke to the GeoPura team, the news broke that Canadian fuel cell manufacturer Ballard Power had agreed to acquire the company. At Ballard’s latest earnings call, the company foregrounded the investment, and stated a long-term aim of bringing GeoPura’s approach to North America.
Barney sees the UK commitment to cut emissions, and National Highways’ role as a carbon pathfinder, as key to the sector’s growth. “The government’s ambition here is to really turn the dial to get that trust and confidence now in hydrogen fuel, that’s as good as in most cases if not better than the fossil fuel alternatives.
This article was first published in the September 2026 issue of The Construction Index Magazine. Sign up online.
“Getting that use case out there and just matching that supply with people who are producing brilliant bits of kit, who previously haven’t been able to get the molecules, will, we hope, bring use to the next stage, and ultimately we’ll be filling salt caverns.”
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