JCB Invests £100mn to Produce Hydrogen Engines

In an announcement made by JCB today, the leading UK manufacturer of construction machinery has outlined its plans to invest £100mn into a project to produce ‘super-efficient’ hydrogen engines. 

With a team of 100 engineers, and recruitment plans to hire 50 more, JCB hopes to have the first machines available for sale to customers by the end of 2022.

JCB’s Commitment to Sustainable Solutions

Playing its part in ‘sculpting the modern world’, JCB’s machines are used in agriculture, construction, power generation, and access in more than 150 countries around the world. “It’s a fact that we’re immensely proud of,” said JCB.

“In a world that’s increasingly under pressure from environmental degradation, finding innovative and sustainable solutions to our customers’ needs and managing the resources that go into our products is more important than ever” - JCB.

JCB has outlined a comprehensive strategy for driving its sustainability. The manufacturer has four over-arching objectives - reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing resource use, reducing waste (including single-use plastics) and delivering organisational wide engagement with sustainability requirements - as well as seven core values that it aims to deliver: 

• Decarbonisation
• Nature
• Improve air quality
• Resource efficiency
• Environmental protection
• Social sustainability
• System thinking

Working in line with current scientific, political and social imperatives on environmental protection, JCB aims to tackle these core values within its four key workstreams; sustainable innovation and engineering, sustainable supply chain, sustainable manufacturing, and sustainable people.

Click here to find out more about JCB’s sustainable solutions.

JCB’s Hydrogen-Powered Prototype

Unveiled at central London - attended by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson - JCB showcased its prototype backhoe loader and loadall telescopic handler powered by hydrogen. 

JCB will be attending COP26 in Glasgow, where the manufacturer will show its hydrogen technology in the Green Zone. JCB’s entrant into zero-emission hydrogen technology comes at a time where global governments have begun to release strategies to develop the infrastructure needed to drive CO2 emissions down with the use of hydrogen.

“Great British manufacturers like JCB are developing innovative solutions to slash greenhouse emissions and advance the UK’s green industrial revolution,” said UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

“It was fantastic to see JCB’s super-efficient hydrogen engines, which could overhaul UK manufacturing, help us to rapidly reach our climate targets and ramp up the UK’s hydrogen economy – an exciting area that will be essential to tackling climate change, creating new jobs and attracting investment.”

Lord Anthony Bamford, Chairman, JCB added: “Our sort of machinery will need to be powered by something other than fossil fuels. We make machines which are powered by diesel so we have to find a solution and we are doing something about it now. 

“We are investing in hydrogen as we don’t see electric being the all-round solution, particularly not for our industry because it can only be used to power smaller machines. It does mean we will carry on making engines, but they will be super-efficient, affordable, high-tech hydrogen motors with zero CO2 emissions, which can be brought to market quickly using our existing supply base. These will be our industry’s first hydrogen engines, developed in Great Britain by British engineers. Hydrogen motors have the potential to help the UK reach CO2 emissions targets more quickly.”

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