The fueling station is part of NREL’s new Hydrogen Infrastructure Testing and Research Facility (HITRF), where scientists will be able to produce hydrogen through electrolysis, test fuel cell vehicle and infrastructure components and systems, and improve renewable hydrogen production methods. The HITRF will support research and development projects funded by the Energy Department’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as well as industry, government, and university partners.

NREL opened its first hydrogen fueling research station in 2009 at the National Wind Technology Center south of Boulder as part of the Wind-to-Hydrogen project studying renewable hydrogen production through electrolysis. The new HITRF station in Golden builds on that experience and expertise.

The HITRF is a retail-style station in a research setting, enabling demonstration of real-world hydrogen fueling and infrastructure technologies with no disruption to customer service. NREL is using the HITRF to test the hydrogen station equipment performance (HyStEP) device for the Energy Department as part of the Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Research and Station Technology project, or H2FIRST, in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories. The HyStEP device is intended to accelerate commercial hydrogen station acceptance by validating that the station can follow standard protocols for safe hydrogen fueling. The data generated by the device will be shared with all car manufacturers, instead of each company having to separately validate a station’s performance.