The joint venture H2 Mobility Deutschland and its partners Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde and Shell officially opened two new hydrogen refuelling stations in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.
The German federal state of Hesse now has a total of five H2 filling stations for emission-free fuel cell vehicles. With these new stations, the partners have moved yet another step closer to a nationwide H2 supply network. The new sites are both conveniently located directly on the A661 and A66 motorways at key points of intersection for people driving from north to south through Germany.
H2 Mobility commissioned the new hydrogen station in Frankfurt’s Hanauer Landstrasse 334 while Daimler AG is the owner of the filling station in Wiesbaden’s Borsigstrasse 1. The innovative H2 handling technology hails from two of the big names in this sector: Air Liquide respectively Linde. Both stations are located on Shell premises.
If hydrogen mobility is to be a success, the market has to offer an attractive range of fuel cell vehicles alongside a complementary refuelling infrastructure. Thanks to financial support from the German government via its National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP), Germany now has a total of 30 hydrogen refuelling stations. Overall, the German government has invested some EUR 1.6 million in the two new stations. By 2018, there should already be 100 stations. The cornerstone for the expansion of Germany’s hydrogen infrastructure was laid by the trailblazing demonstration project Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) which set out joint standards and norms.
The two cutting-edge H2 filling stations in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt offer drivers an intuitive fuelling experience similar to facilities for conventional vehicles. It takes between three to five minutes to fill up a fuel cell vehicle. Both stations have the capacity to serve 40 FCEVs every day.
A hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle does not emit any tailpipe GHGs or other pollutants. A number of manufacturers already have hydrogen FCEVs on offer with an operating range of between 500 and 700 kilometres. Daimler AG is set to present its latest generation of vehicles based on the Mercedes-Benz GLC this year.
In Germany, hydrogen features particularly strongly in the climate debate. An eco-friendly addition to the range of fuels on offer in the transport sector, renewably generated hydrogen can bring about a substantial reduction in the volume of climate-noxious CO2 emissions.
At present, Germany has another 27 hydrogen stations in the pipeline or under construction. This year, for example, H2 Mobility and its partner companies are due to unveil filling stations in Kassel, Bremen and Wendlingen. And more are planned for the Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Munich areas.
