Hydrogen station


A hydrogen station is a storage or filling station for hydrogen, usually located along a road or hydrogen highway, or at home as part of the distributed energy resources concept. The stations are usually intended to provide fuel for hydrogen-powered vehicles, but the hydrogen can also be used to power small devices. Vehicles use hydrogen as fuel in one of several ways, including fuel cells and mixed fuels like HCNG. The hydrogen fuel dispensers measure the fuel dispensed by weight.

Hydrogen filling stations by country

A global map of hydrogen filling stations is available.

Asia

As of June 2020, there are 178 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[Japan]

As of June 2020, there are 114 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.
Japan built a number of hydrogen filling stations under the JHFC project from 2002 to 2010 to test various technologies of hydrogen generation. By the end of 2012 there were 17 hydrogen stations and 19 new stations were expected to be installed by 2015. The Japanese government expects to add up to 100 hydrogen stations under a budget of $460 million. That amount covers 50% of the installation costs, with the last stations operational by 2015. JX Energy expects to install 40 stations by 2015, and another 60 between 2016 and 2018. Toho Gas and Iwatani Corp After that, they expect to install an additional 20 stations. Toyota Tsusho and Air Liquide made a joint venture to build 2 hydrogen stations, which were planned to be ready by 2015. Osaka Gas planned 2 stations for 2014–15. A task force led by Yuriko Koike, Japan's former environment minister, and supported by the country's Liberal Democratic Party, was set up to oversee the process.

[China]

As of June 2020, there are 27 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[South Korea]

As of June 2020, there are 33 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.
As of 2018, approximately 18,000 full cell electric vehicles were produced in Korea, which means that more hydrogen recharging stations are required across the country. In response to the rising demand for FCEVs, the Korean government established plans to increase the number of hydrogen recharging stations to 310 by 2022.

Europe

As of June 2020, there are more than 177 stations in Europe and 43 under construction.

[Germany]

As of June 2020, there are 84 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 21 under construction.

[France]

As of June 2020, there are 5 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 2 under construction.

[Iceland]

As of June 2020, there are 3 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[Italy]

As of June 2020, there is one publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[Netherlands]

As of June 2020, there are 4 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 3 under construction.

[Denmark]

As of June 2020, there are 6 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 1 under construction.

[Belgium]

As of June 2020, there are 2 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[Norway]

As of June 2020, there are 6 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 4 under construction. Uno-X, in partnership with Nel Asa, planned to build 20 stations before 2020, including a station with on-site hydrogen production from excess solar energy, which would be the first such station in existence.

[Sweden]

As of June 2020, there are 4 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation.

[Switzerland]

As of June 2020, there are 3 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 4 under construction.

[United Kingdom]

As of June 2020, there are 11 publicly available hydrogen fuel stations in operation and 1 under construction.
In 2011 the first public hydrogen station opened in Swindon. In 2014 HyTec opened the London Hatton Cross station. On March 11, 2015, the London Hydrogen Network Expansion project opened the first supermarket-located hydrogen refuelling station at Sainsbury's in Hendon. Aberdeen opened its first hydrogen station in 2015, in Kittybrewster, for buses and council vehicles. In 2018 this station opened to the public, and in 2017 a second station was opened in the suburb of Cove Bay. Hydrogen stations in Bedfordshire and Stratford were scheduled to open to the public before 2016. The HyFive project had 3 stations planned for London by 2015. On October 9, 2014, the British government announced funding of £11 million to have 15 public hydrogen refuelling stations built at the end of 2015. In September 2015, Shell and ITM Power announced a strategic siting partnership for the placement of an initial three ITM hydrogen refuelers on Shell forecourts in London and the South East of the UK.

North America

As of January 2020, there are 74 stations with 40 of those in the state of California.

[Canada]

In 2018, Shell Canada launched an initiative to build hydrogen fueling stations starting with the first in Vancouver. They currently plan on building at least two more within the city.

[United States]

Delivery methods

Hydrogen recharging stations can be divided into off-site stations and on-site stations depending on how they supply hydrogen to vehicles. Hydrogen recharging stations that have been built across Korea at the moment are mostly off-site stations. Moving forward however, stations for large capacity hydrogen buses are expected to be on-site stations.
SortMethod
Off-site hydrogen recharging station
Hydrogen supplied from an external source
Hydrogen produced from a plant is supplied via pipelines, tube trailers, etc.
On-site hydrogen recharging station
Hydrogen produced by extracting natural gas, electrolysis, etc. at the recharging station

Types of recharging stations

Hydrogen highway

A hydrogen highway is a chain of hydrogen-equipped filling stations and other infrastructure along a road or highway. Italy and Germany are collaborating to build a hydrogen highway between Mantua in northern Italy and Munich in southern Germany.

Hydrogen home stations

Hydrogen home stations come in different types.
Currently, the hydrogen recharging stations built by Hyundai Motor Group can recharge up to 70 Hyundai Nexo vehicles per day, assuming that the station is open for 14 hours daily. However, hydrogen recharging stations without high-pressure storage tanks may require some additional downtime to repressurize the hydrogen in its recharging system if they refuel too many vehicles in a day.
In the future, hydrogen recharging stations moving forward will feature more robust equipment to make sure they can serve a greater number of FCEVs.

Disadvantages

Volatility

Hydrogen fuel is hazardous because of its low ignition energy, high combustion energy, and because it easily leaks from tanks. Explosions at hydrogen filling stations have been reported.

Supply

Hydrogen fuelling stations generally receive deliveries from hydrogen suppliers. An interruption at a hydrogen supply facility can shut down multiple hydrogen fuelling stations due to an interruption of the supply of hydrogen.

Costs

Since the turn of the millennium, filling stations offering hydrogen have been opening worldwide. However, they are far from replacing the existing extensive gasoline fuel station infrastructure, which in the US alone numbered 168,000 gas stations, in 2004, which generated revenues of US$536 billion in 2014. According to Joseph Romm in a book he wrote in 2004, replacing these would cost a half trillion U.S. dollars.
The cost of the necessary European-wide hydrogen fueling infrastructure could be five times lower than the cost of the charging network required for battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles. When viewed as cost per station, EV stations are cheaper than the $3 million per hydrogen station. However, the reason that hydrogen infrastructure is less expensive than electric, even though the individual station cost is higher, is quicker vehicle fueling and longer refueling intervals, thus needing far fewer hydrogen stations per million fuel cell cars than charging stations per million battery electric cars.