TERP awards Vision Industries and project partners $500K to support Texas’ first public hydrogen fueling station
10 December 2012
Vision Industries Corporation, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Air Products and project partners were recently awarded $500,000 from the Texas Emission Reduction Program (TERP) partially to fund the building of the first public hydrogen fueling station in the state. The station, which is proposed to be fed from an existing hydrogen pipeline, will fuel port trucks and be publicly available for personal vehicles.
An alliance of diverse organizations, including hydrogen truck manufacturer Vision Industries, trucking company TTSI, non-profit organization Environmental Defense Fund and Air Products were awarded the funds for the new facility for hydrogen fueling infrastructure through the TERP Alternative Fueling Facilities Program (AFFP).
The facility will support new hydrogen fuel cell electric hybrid trucks being developed for use at the Port of Houston. In addition, the station offers the opportunity to provide fuel for future hydrogen equipment and vehicles used at other facilities, including warehouses and distribution facilities.
We are very happy and excited about the decision by TERP to support this first, large-scale commercial hydrogen fueling station in the world. It will support a fleet of 20 Hydrogen Class 8 trucks initially. However, since hydrogen is supplied through a pipeline, this station could ultimately supply hydrogen for up to 1,000 trucks.
—Martin Schuermann, CEO of Vision Industries
The new hydrogen facility supports the efforts of several of the project partners to reduce emissions, noise, and other environmental impacts of port truck activities. The hydrogen station will be built near the Port of Houston Authority’s Bayport Container Terminal in Harris County, which is part of the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria non-attainment area for ozone, which is a harmful air pollutant. Additional benefits of this location include the presence of an existing hydrogen pipeline that is owned by Air Products, making the fuel 100% locally sourced.
By 2020, trucks fueled at the station are expected to result in a reduction of particulate matter by 46 tons, nitrogen oxides by 2,200 tons, and volatile organic compounds by 23 tons.
I think nay-sayers on hydrogen should check out the great performance of fuel cells in the outages from hurricane Sandy.
As back-up for mobile communications and in many other roles they kept working after batteries ran out, and when diesels often refused to start.
Their excellent record for firing up in this storm with just one installation having problems in contrast to diesels is due to their inherent simplicity.
Of course, some of them were SOFC cells, but many were PEM cells essentially identical to those to be used in cars.
Posted by: Davemart | 10 December 2012 at 04:59 AM
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 generation resources concept.The stations are usually intended to power vehicles, but can also be used to power small devices.
autoservis
Posted by: online money | 11 December 2012 at 02:46 AM
One H2 station might offset .001% of the pollution from all the refineries in Houston. Nice start but you need MUCH MUCH more.
Posted by: SJC | 11 December 2012 at 11:33 AM