Following the partners’ meeting held in May at the NOI Techpark in Bolzano, the European EMPOWER project opened the discussion to a wider audience with a webinar entitled: “Hydrogen in Heavy-Duty Logistics Deployment”. The event featured joint presentations by Anna Holzknecht (IIT Hydrogen), Claudio Mezza (IVECO Group), Ezio Spessa (Turin Polytechnic) and Ettore Gualandi (Gruber Logistics).
Anna Holzknecht, project manager at IIT Hydrogen, opened the proceedings by highlighting the crucial role that hydrogen production and refuelling infrastructure plays in the development of hydrogen-powered heavy-duty transport. Without an adequate refuelling network, hydrogen-powered lorries cannot move beyond the experimental phase. The European AFIR regulation stipulates that by 2030 there should be one station every 200 km along the TEN-T core network. The point is that a facility for heavy goods vehicles must be conceived as a logistics infrastructure: production, supply, storage, compression and dispensing must be able to withstand high pressures, large volumes per refuelling and peaks in demand. Refuelling times are also crucial: at 700 bar, around 5.4 kg of hydrogen is currently dispensed per minute, and the target is to reach 18. Then there is the issue of location: what is needed are not isolated stations, but a network that aligns with freight routes. The experience on the Brenner corridor supports the points made by Anna Holzknech. In Bolzano Sud, in fact, where IIT Hydrogen has been producing and distributing green hydrogen since 2014, the plant has carried out over 20,000 refuelling operations and produced 177,000 kg of hydrogen, preventing the emission of 2,400 tonnes of CO₂. In Brunico, meanwhile, the facility built in partnership with Alperia provided the shuttle bus fleet operating during the recent Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics with 54 full refuelling sessions over 12 days.
