Air Liquide building hydrogen stations for the Netherlands, Japan

Air Liquide building hydrogen stations for the Netherlands, Japan

NEWS million) of funding to prepare for the national rollout of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The investment by government and industry will h...

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NEWS million) of funding to prepare for the national rollout of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The investment by government and industry will help establish an initial network of up to 15 hydrogen refueling stations by the end of 2015, and includes £2 million ($3.2 million) of funding for public sector hydrogen vehicles. The funding is part of the UK government’s drive to become a global leader in ultra-low emission vehicles, and one of the ways that the government plans to decarbonise road transport. ‘Hydrogen cars present us with a huge economic opportunity,’ says business minister Matthew Hancock. ‘We want to make the UK one of the best places in the world to design, manufacture, and sell ultra-low emission vehicles.’ Of the newly announced funding, £7.5 million ($12 million) will come from government and £3.5 million ($5.6 million) from industry. This will target: UÊ ËÓʓˆˆœ˜ÊœvÊ̜«‡Õ«Êv՘`ˆ˜}Ê̜ÊÕ«}À>`iÊÈqnÊ existing hydrogen refueling stations (already operational or under development), and take them from demonstration projects to publicly accessible sites. UÊ Ëΰxʓˆˆœ˜ÊœvÊv՘`ˆ˜}ʭ̜ÊLiʓ>ÌV…i`ÊLÞÊ industry) for 4–7 new hydrogen refueling stations; this will include mobile stations as well as those on stand-alone sites and integrated into conventional forecourts. UÊ ËÓʓˆˆœ˜ÊœvÊv՘`ˆ˜}ÊvœÀÊ«ÕLˆVÊÃiV̜ÀÊviiÌÃ]ÊÌœÊ encourage deployment of around 40 hydrogen FCEVs in focused geographical clusters. The programme follows on from the work undertaken by the UK H2 Mobility project – which brings together leading businesses from the automotive, energy, infrastructure and retail sectors with government – to provide a national roadmap for the introduction of FCEVs and hydrogen refueling infrastructure [FCB, January 2012, p1]. Establishing 15 hydrogen stations by the end of 2015 will represent a significant first step towards the initial national network of 65 identified by UK H2 Mobility in its Phase 1 report last year [FCB, February 2013, p1]. There are currently 12 industry participants in UK H2 Mobility: Air Liquide, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Intelligent Energy, ITM Power, Johnson Matthey, Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd, BOC (part of The Linde Group), Toyota, and the Morrisons and Sainsbury’s supermarket chains. Also participating are three UK government departments – the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Transport, and the Department for Energy and Climate Change – as well as Transport Scotland, the Welsh Government, and the Greater London Authority. The European

October 2014

Fuel Cells & Hydrogen Joint Undertaking is also a participant. ‘There are already several Air Products SmartFuel® hydrogen fueling stations in the UK, with plans for more, and we look forward to seeing this network expand as we work with the government to make hydrogen transport a reality,’ says Diana Raine, European business manager for hydrogen energy systems at Air Products [see the Air Products feature in FCB, February 2013]. UK H2 Mobility: www.ukh2mobility.co.uk

Air Liquide building hydrogen stations for the Netherlands, Japan

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t the beginning of September, Air Liquide inaugurated its first hydrogen fueling station in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. A couple of days earlier, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony in Japan to begin construction of a new hydrogen station in Aichi Prefecture, in the Atsuta district of Nagoya, and initiated the construction of another station in the Fukada district of nearby Toyota City. The Rotterdam station is the first Air Liquide hydrogen station in the Netherlands, and will be open to the public. It taps into the company’s hydrogen pipeline network in the Rotterdam region, and has the capacity to refuel 50 fuel cell cars per day; it can also serve fuel cell buses. This station is part of the Hydrogen Infrastructure for Transport (HIT) project, a European hydrogen infrastructure deployment initiative run by Air Liquide and six European partners [FCB, December 2012, p8]. It has received financial backing from the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), a European Commission programme to support the development of transport infrastructures. Air Liquide is actively involved in establishing the global hydrogen energy industry; it has already designed and supplied more than 60 hydrogen fueling stations around the world. The company’s first station intended for the general public opened in 2012 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Air Liquide recently announced the installation of four new hydrogen stations in Denmark, creating the first national hydrogen infrastructure network in Europe [FCB, July 2014, p8], and the first hydrogen station in France for a regional authority [FCB, August 2014, p6]. Meanwhile in Japan, Air Liquide is constructing two new hydrogen fueling stations in the Nagoya area, both of which are intended

for public use. The stations are being built by the new joint venture company between Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Air Liquide Japan, which aims to establish a hydrogen supply business for fuel cell electric vehicles in Japan [FCB, November 2013, p8]. The Japanese government aims to install 100 hydrogen fueling stations in and alongside the highways connecting four major cities – Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka – by the end of fiscal 2015 [FCB, June 2012, p11], with the participation of companies such as Air Liquide and JX Nippon Oil & Energy [FCB, August 2014, p5, and see next item]. Air Liquide, Hydrogen Refueling Stations: http://tinyurl.com/airliquide-h2refueling Hydrogen Infrastructure for Transport project: www.hit-tent.eu Air Liquide Japan: www.jp.airliquide.com/en/welcome.html Toyota Tsusho Corporation: www.toyota-tsusho.com/english

Honda, Iwatani rolling out Smart Hydrogen Station units in Japan

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n Japan, Honda Motor Co and industrial gases producer Iwatani Corporation have installed the first Smart Hydrogen Station (SHS), containing hydrogen production equipment and a vehicle charging system, at a site in Saitama City, north of Tokyo. Currently, the installation cost of hydrogen stations is reportedly about ¥400–500 million (US$3.8–4.7 million) per unit, but Honda aims to reduce this by 90%, according to a Nikkei Technology report. Honda and Iwatani consider that the new unit will contribute to the spread of hydrogen stations. Honda, which plans to release its fuel cell electric vehicle in 2015 [FCB, December 2013, p2], intends to use the unit to establish a basic hydrogen refueling infrastructure for FCEVs. The Smart Hydrogen Station uses grid power to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen, although it can also use renewable energy such as solar electricity. The Saitama City government has installed the first unit on the site of a waste incineration plant, using electricity generated from exhaust heat produced by incinerating garbage. The government plans to test the efficient management of the Smart Hydrogen Station, and monitor the running costs of using its FCEVs [FCB, April 2012, p5].

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