Forklifts turn to hydrogen in France, thanks to Air Liquide

Air Liquide has been chosen by FM Logistic, an international group whose expertise lies in logistics and supply chains, to provide support for its projected deployment of hydrogen-powered forklift trucks on its sites. At the Neuville-aux-Bois logistics platform, located near the city of Orléans, this provider installed a hydrogen charging station that will initially service ten forklifts equipped with hydrogen fuel cells.

The fuel cells supplied by HyPulsion, which replace electric batteries, offer flexibility and improved productivity due to the greater autonomy that result from their use for the forklift trucks and to the fact that recharging takes far less time. Air Liquide’s hydrogen charging stations can fully recharge forklift trucks in just 3 minutes for 9 to 10 hours of autonomy.

Eventually, the site’s 84 forklifts could switch to hydrogen, which would make it the first logistics hub in Europe to convert its entire fleet of forklift trucks to that kind of energy. Other FM Logistic hubs could be similarly equipped in the future.

Air Liquide reminds that the use of hydrogen at logistics hubs was first developed in the United States and Canada, with more than 6 000 forklift trucks running on hydrogen.

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