May 22nd 2025

Extreme H completes first test of paddock power solution

Extreme H has completed the first test of the hydrogen solution which will power the paddock and infrastructure at its FIA World Cup event later this year. The test of the next generation Hydrogen Power Unit (dubbed HPU2), developed by GeoPura, took place at Siemens Energy's facility in Newcastle upon Tyne in the northeast UK.

“Extreme H will be famous for its hydrogen fuel cell racing cars, but they are only half of the story as we are also trialing hydrogen technologies across the whole event site in an effort to become the first sport to run entirely on zero emission hydrogen,” said Andy Welch, Extreme H’s, global hydrogen development manager. “We are immensely proud to be working alongside clean power pioneers GeoPura and Power Logistics as we continue to scale our capabilities and showcase hydrogen’s potential.

“Witnessing the successful test of GeoPura’s HPU2 hydrogen fuel cell prototype today marks a major step forward, not just for our series, but for the broader live events industry. Extreme H is an important global test bed for real-world hydrogen solutions, proving what’s possible and accelerating the transition toward cleaner, more sustainable events worldwide.”

The electricity produced by HPU2 is entirely zero emissions, and the hydrogen it uses is produced exclusively from renewable sources as well, maintaining zero emissions from start to finish. And HPU2, unlike its predecessor which had an integrated battery, HPU2 deploys a modular external solution to enable great flexibility whereby it can work on its own, or as a hybrid setup with supplementary battery support.

Extreme H's precursor Extreme E utilized a hydrogen solution for its paddock an infrastructure, but the Extreme H solution is smaller, lighter, and delivers five times the power – enough to power up to 1,200 average sized homes when run for 24 hours continuously. Being used in Extreme H, it continues an intense testing regime in the harshest of conditions.

“Extreme E has driven sustainability, but innovation is important, and they've proven for the last three or four years, and done that exceptionally well,” Theo Elmer, GeoPura’s chief technical officer told RACER. “As a team, they're always looking to push themselves that bit harder.

“Like implementing any new technology, there's all the bits that you can test, but it's all about actually deploying. GeoPura has a huge amount of experience deploying, because we deploy hundreds of hydrogen systems all around the UK and Europe.

“Obviously, the challenges with the Extreme H World Cup will be the desert environment, like most things, people, equipment, don't like hot [conditions] don't like lots of sand. So those are two very key challenges.”

While it’s being deployed in Extreme H, HPU2 has wider capabilities outside of motorsport, highlighting how racing can still serve as a proving ground for real world technologies and ideas. HPU2 has already seen use supporting music festivals in the UK and the production of Netflix’s Bridgerton.

“It's important because that's the whole premise of the race event, and the race series is sustainability and driving innovation, and this ticks both those boxes,” said Elmer. “An event like this is a fantastic proving ground, because the demands on it are so high.

“So if we can meet the requirements here, in the very challenging environmental conditions – with the very remote nature of it, the quick turnaround and setup time – we can meet all of those. It can be used in vast numbers of other applications, anywhere that needs redundant, resilient power.”

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