Sustainable Development Goals
PROJECT INFORMATION AT A GLANCE:
Project Status:
Shore-to-Store truck operations completed; Long Beach Tri-gen system commissioned and launched
Organizations Involved:
Port of Los Angeles, California Air Resources Board, Kenworth, Toyota, Shell, Fastech, Toyota Logistics Services, FuelCell Energy, and freight operators
Services / Equipment:
Detailed Feasibility Studies, Plant Design & Engineering
A truck carrying a container out of Los Angeles and a newly imported car entering a wash bay in Long Beach have something in common. Each does a job that helps explain where the value of renewable hydrogen infrastructure comes from. The truck needs fuel at a predictable point on its route. The wash bay can use water recovered while a nearby fuel cell system produces hydrogen and electricity.
Two projects in the San Pedro Bay port complex put those ideas into practice. The Port of Los Angeles brought fuel cell trucks and refueling stations into the same freight demonstration. In neighboring Long Beach, Toyota and FuelCell Energy gave three products from renewable biogas a use at one vehicle-processing facility. Studied together, they show why we start a circular project by identifying who will take each output, where they need it and how often.
The Challenge
Make the fuel available where freight actually moves
Port drayage is the truck journey that connects a marine terminal with a warehouse, rail facility or other freight destination. A truck can have enough range to complete that journey and still lose a shift if its driver must leave the route to find fuel. Conversely, a station can dispense hydrogen quickly and still sit idle if operators have too few trucks assigned to it.
The Los Angeles Shore-to-Store project addressed both sides. Its rollout paired five heavy-duty hydrogen trucks with stations in Wilmington, near the port, and Ontario, inland. The program expanded to ten Class 8 trucks. The two stations gave operators a place to refuel at either end of the freight corridor. Battery-electric yard tractors and forklifts were also included in the program design for jobs that stayed within the terminal or warehouse.
The Solution
Test the vehicle and its route as one investment
The Port announced a total project value of $82.5 million. A California Air Resources Board matching grant accounted for $41.1 million, with partners contributing $41.4 million in funding and in-kind support. That budget covered a freight demonstration with vehicles, infrastructure and operating partners. Dividing it by ten would give a misleading truck purchase price.
Kenworth integrated Toyota fuel cell technology into its T680 trucks. At the completion of truck operations, the partners reported a range of about 300 miles or more at a gross combined weight of 82,000 lb. For a dispatcher, the useful comparison is the distance a loaded truck can cover between available stations, including the return leg. For a station developer, those same trips establish when fuel must be ready.
Find a working destination for every product
Toyota Logistics Services at Long Beach processes roughly 200,000 new Toyota and Lexus vehicles annually. Its operating day creates several distinct demands. Facilities need electricity. Incoming Mirai vehicles need hydrogen, as do heavy trucks using a nearby station. Vehicles coming off ships need washing before delivery. That last detail gives a byproduct a practical destination just steps from where it is recovered.
Toyota commissioned the Tri-gen system. FuelCell Energy owns and operates it. The system uses directed renewable biogas supplied through the gas network. At the port, fuel cell technology converts the gas electrochemically, producing electricity, recoverable hydrogen and usable water. The local infrastructure determines what happens next.
| Published Tri-gen capability | Destination and commercial significance |
|---|---|
| 2.3 MW of electrical capacity | Electricity serves Toyota’s vehicle-processing facilities. Surplus power can flow to the utility grid, giving generation above the site’s own load an outlet. |
| Up to 1,200 kg of hydrogen per day | Incoming passenger fuel cell vehicles and a nearby heavy-duty station provide different outlets. Allocating hydrogen to one reduces the quantity available to the other. |
| Up to 1,400 US gallons of water per day | Toyota uses recovered water in its wash operations. The partners estimated this could displace approximately half a million gallons of local water use per year. |
The Outcome
Two ports answer different investment questions
Los Angeles demonstrated that loaded fuel cell trucks could perform freight work on a corridor equipped to refuel them. Long Beach showed how a host with several existing uses could make productive use of a biogas conversion plant’s outputs. The Los Angeles truck demonstration concluded before the Long Beach Tri-gen launch. Their connection is the operating logic a developer can take from both projects.
Consider the wash water. Its value comes from the freshwater purchase it can displace when cars are being processed. A developer elsewhere needs to establish the required water quality, the daily volume the site can accept and storage for the hours the wash is closed. The same question applies to hydrogen. A production rating gives kilograms per day. Dispatch records tell the developer how many kilograms must be ready in the busiest hour. Both figures belong in the investment model.
How We Apply the Lesson Globally
Our Detailed Feasibility Study for CMA CGM examined a different supply route for CEVA distribution warehouses. The Australian starting concept paired rooftop solar and electrolysis with hydrogen storage, warehouse power and fleet refueling. Our illustrative warehouse model uses 780 kg of hydrogen for 20 nominal full fills of 39 kg each on a modeled solar day. California’s Long Beach figure of 1,200 kg per day is a published plant capacity serving multiple users. Each figure answers a different question. Together they show why roof area, plant output and truck counts become commercially meaningful only when tied to a particular site and fleet.
The same discipline applies to our tyre resource-recovery work. A haulier can deliver end-of-life tyres on a return journey. A recycler can recover oil, carbon and steel. A refinery or compounder can take a recovered product once its quality and delivery terms meet the buyer’s needs. In Australia, Viva Energy co-processed 10 tonnes of tyre pyrolysis oil with conventional crude at Geelong. That trial addresses a question a yield forecast alone cannot answer: can the material enter the customer’s process?
For ports and industrial estates, working through each handover is how we connect the projects we develop around the world. A reliable feedstock, a working logistics route and a qualified customer each solve a different part of the investment problem.
1. Locate fuel around freight schedules. Shore-to-Store paired trucks with stations at the port and inland. A site’s busiest dispatch window is a better guide to dispenser capacity than annual hydrogen demand alone.
2. Count the value the site can actually capture. At Long Beach, power can serve the facility or the grid, hydrogen has vehicle customers, and water can displace a purchase. Each outlet needs its own volume, specification and commercial basis.
3. Test the receiving operation. A loaded truck completing a route, a wash bay accepting recovered water and a refinery processing recovered oil are different forms of evidence that an output has a practical use.
These are selected project lessons. Further technical and commercial insights are available through an engagement with our team.
WHAT DO THESE LESSONS MEAN FOR YOUR PROJECT?
Bring Klean a week of dispatch records, an hourly power profile and a list of the materials or utilities your site buys and disposes of. Identify which local customers could take fuel, electricity, water or recovered materials, and what they would require before signing an agreement. That information gives Klean a basis for comparing configurations on the value your site can capture.
For equipment developments, the paid Detailed Equipment Quotation (DEQ) establishes the preliminary configuration and investment basis. A Detailed Feasibility Study (DFS) evaluates site performance, logistics, offtake and economics before Front-End Engineering Design (FEED).
Discuss Your Circular Infrastructure Project with Klean >> GO.
ABOUT THE INFORMATION PRESENTED
This educational case draws on project accounts from the Port of Los Angeles, Toyota, Kenworth and FuelCell Energy. Tri-gen figures describe published plant capabilities. We interpret the California references and show how their lessons apply to our own project development and feasibility work. The case connects to Sustainable Development Goals 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 13 (climate action).
