Toyota’s planned Tri-Gen facility, which will be located in Long Beach, California, is intended to prove that 100% renewable, local hydrogen generation can be done at scale, and in this instance will use agricultural waste as the feedstock. The bio-waste, which will primarily come from dairy cattle manure for this project, produces methane, which is then fed into the fuel cells developed by FuelCell Energy and converted into clean electricity, along with hydrogen.
The Tri-Gen facility, once operational in 2020, is expected to generate about 2.35MW of electricity, as well as 1.2 tons of hydrogen. This will allow the company’s Logistics Services operations at the Port of Long Beach to be run on 100% renewable energy, while also fueling all Toyota fuel cell vehicles coming through the Port. Toyota has already built “one of the largest hydrogen fueling stations in the world” at the facility, and the Tri-Gen power plant will presumably feed into that system.
“Project Portal” class 8 truck is based on hydrogen fuel cell technology. The company will be testing out these heavy duty short-haulers in and around the Port of Long Beach, in which case having its own hydrogen generation facility makes a lot of sense.