‘World’s first’ hydrogen-powered backhoe loader deployed on £10bn Lower Thames Crossing

The UK’s £10 billion Lower Thames Crossing project has become the first major infrastructure programme in Britain to commit to carbon-neutral construction, with the live deployment of a hydrogen-powered backhoe loader on site.

National Highways confirmed that the project, which will connect Kent and Essex via a new road and tunnel, has introduced a JCB-built, hydrogen-fuelled backhoe loader for survey work near Gravesend, Kent. It is the first time such machinery, which uses a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine, has been used outside a test environment. The machine is being operated by Skanska, the project’s delivery partner in Kent, supplied by Flannery Plant Hire and fuelled by Ryze.