H2 Mobility partners open two new H2 stations in the Rhine-Main Area; linking north to south through Germany
14 June 2017
The joint venture H2 Mobility Deutschland and its partners Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde and Shell officially opened two new hydrogen refueling stations in Frankfurt and Wiesbaden. The German federal state of Hesse now has a total of five H2 filling stations for 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. Both stations are located on Shell premises.
With 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 refueling stations. Overall, the German government has invested some €1.6 million (US$1.8 million) in the two new stations. By 2018, there should be 100 stations. The demonstration project Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) set out joint standards and norms which laid the basis for the expansion of the hydrogen infrastructure.
The two 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.
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. More are planned for the Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Munich areas.
Everything is in place for the market launch of electric vehicles with fuel cell. Today the technology is ready for series production and the H2 refuelling station network is constantly expanding. Thanks in great part to the concrete action plan put together by our H2 Mobility Joint Venture, hydrogen is on track to become an increasingly viable option for everyday mobility. This year we are taking the next step to long-distance e-mobility in the premium segment with the world premier of our latest model based on the Mercedes-Benz GLC.
—Prof. Dr. Christian Mohrdieck, Director Fuel Cell at Daimler AG
H2 Mobility’s shareholders are Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde, OMV, Shell and TOTAL. As associated partners, BMW, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen advise H2 Mobility.
Some 100 H2 stations with a total capacity of 4,000 HVEC fills/day is a good start for Germany. Considering that an average FCEV will drive for about one full week per fill, those early 100 H2 stations will have the capacity to serve up to 28,000 FCEVs.
More larger stations will be built to satisfy ever growing demand for H2.
All major e-Power, Oil & Gas firms will get involve
Posted by: HarveyD | 14 June 2017 at 10:21 AM
California is doing similar scale project 30 going to 100 sites. US needs to build out an interstate refilling points geographic dispersed so long trips can be made . Huge selling point in the hydrogen versus battery battle is long distance travel. A $50k H2 car like the Mirai versus $120K Tesla X or $80k Tesla., is already price competitive. forget the Bolt , not designed to long trips.
Audi and BMW should have viable hydrogen cars on market soon.
Its the heavier H2FC SUV scale vehicles that will benifit most from the H2 station buildout.
It would viable to have smaller containers of H2 in solid state media for sale at the interstate sites that are not ready for high pressure pumps, but that would make too much sense. We do have a considerable research effort underway to fufill this scenario at DOE Hymarc.
The oil glut is not helping this cause.
Posted by: solarsurfer | 14 June 2017 at 11:23 AM
"Solar paint produces hydrogen from sunlight and water vapor"
https://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/solar-paint-splits-water-atoms-produce-hydrogen-power.html
Posted by: SJC | 14 June 2017 at 12:59 PM
Yes SJC. Many new ways are being developed to convert sunlight and (any) water into, drinking-fresh-sterilized water, heat, electricity and storable H2.
Using ocean and used filtered water to produce massive amount of fresh purified water would do a lot for farming and human health in many places.
Production of clean H2 in large quantity would promote the use of FC for clean extended range vehicles of all sizes.
Posted by: HarveyD | 14 June 2017 at 06:22 PM
It was a link I came across, looked interesting.
Posted by: SJC | 14 June 2017 at 09:03 PM
More work has now been done on assessing the very long energy and GHG emission pay back times of very big battery BEVs:
https://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-from-batteries-of-electric-cars
'Mats-Ola Larsson, their colleague at IVL, has calculated how long you need to drive a petrol or diesel car before it has released as much carbon dioxide as an electric car battery. The result was 2.7 years for a battery of the same size as Nissan Leaf and 8.2 years for a battery of Tesla size, based on a series of assumptions.'
It should be noted of course that as the link says it depends on how carbon intensive the energy used to produce the battery is, but nevertheless it is plain that a bigger battery is far from the slam-dunk proponents have bloviated endlessly on.
Posted by: Davemart | 15 June 2017 at 12:22 AM
FIVE whole stations. For a zone which is, by my estimate of its dimensions on the map, roughly 60 miles E-W and probably double that N-S. That is on the order of 1400 mi² per station, or a drive of 21 miles to the nearest one from significant areas.
This is grossly impractical for users in the bulk of the area. Those same users are already on the electrical grid and can use EVs already.
So if users need to fuel on the average of 1/week, those two stations can serve a fleet maybe as large as 560 vehicles. IF their users don't all need fuel at the same time, e.g. for a holiday weekend.
Is there ANYTHING more ridiculous than hypedrogen cars?
Okay, an article about a TiO2 paint which produces hydrogen from water (at an unspecified efficiency and without any notes about other requirements) is definitely more ridiculous. Pure nonsense.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 15 June 2017 at 11:42 PM
The H2 era has started in many places/countries and will grow as fast (or even faster) as the BEV era did in California for the last 10+ years.
One H2 station per 100 x 100 Km (10,000 km2) to deserve 500 Km range FCEVs is a good early start? It will progressively go to one H2 sub-station per 10 x 10 Km (100 km2).
Early H2 stations could become large feeder stations, to produce and feed sub-stations with H2, with trucks or pipelines? H2 trucks could become (simple/basic) mobile H2 sub-stations to move H2 from main stations to easy access delivery points, much the same way as gasoline/diesel is currently delivered.
Posted by: HarveyD | 19 June 2017 at 01:35 PM
How irritating. Everything is being moderated into oblivion.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 21 June 2017 at 08:10 PM
H2 carrier (trucks) will become mobile sub H2 stations to better accommodate FCEV users.
Filling your FCEV directly from H2 carrier trucks will reduce trips to main H2 stations.
Alternatively, getting H2 delivered home 'on demand' will also become a possibility.
Unlike for BEVs/PHEVs, you will not have to drive to a quick charge station nor have to wait 30+ minutes for as regular charge.
Posted by: HarveyD | 22 June 2017 at 03:31 PM
Harvey, the bulk of the comment that I can't get through the filters is a direct rebuttal of your innumeracy. But I'll try again, posting in pieces hopefully small enough to filter through.
Another day, another delusion to puncture.
Expectations for FCEVs are so pathetic that Toyota's Mirai flagship FCEV is set for all of 3000 units this year. That's Toyota, the biggest car company in the world! As of last year, upstart Tesla was making 2000 vehicles a week.
Regular people won't be able to use them; nobody can afford to have their nearest source of fuel be as much as 70 km away. Only fleet customers will be buying, and the production figures agree.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 22 June 2017 at 05:04 PM
Let's do a little math. A gasoline tanker carries on the order of 5000 to 6000 gallons of fuel. The DoE is trying to get the hydrogen content of FC fuel systems up to 5.7% by weight. Let's assume that a really big tank has economies of scale which allow it to get up to 8%, so you have 12.5 kg of weight total for 1 kg of H2. A 55,000 lb pressurized tank trailer (25,000 kg) would carry 2000 kg of H2, or about 1/3 the energy equivalent of the gasoline. If you stick with DoE's 5.7% you only get 1425 kg, about 1/4 as much as the gasoline tanker. This means at least doubling the number of fuel tankers on the road.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 22 June 2017 at 05:05 PM
Worse, you'd have to park this trailer at the point of use; you couldn't put it underground because you'd have no way to inspect it for deterioration. There you have a whole bunch of space eaten up by the fuel-trailer, and you'd need 2 slots so you could deliver one before the earlier one is fully empty.
What this comes down to is that the only way to do hydrogen workably is to bring steam methane reformer plants to the service stations, and feed them with natural gas. This means the oil companies, which now own the gas networks, will continue to control transportation fuel. It also means that the CO2 will still be dumped in the atmosphere.
Basically, the H2FCEV is a fraud perpetrated by the oilcos to keep control of our energy.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 22 June 2017 at 05:07 PM
(Problem discovered. The filters throw a fit at the phrase "B_oys and g_irls".)
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 22 June 2017 at 05:08 PM
Average FCEV fills with 5 Kg of H2 every 10 days or so.
If a large H2 carrier (truck) can carry 2,000 Kgs of H2, it could fill 400 FCEVs per load. One such H2 carrier could supply enough H2 for an average H2 sub-station or enough home delivered H2 for (400 x 10 = 4,000) FCEVs.
Heating oil has been delivered that way for decades.
H2 sub-stations and home deliveries would normally be within or under 50 Km from the main H2 station.
H2 delivery would NOT be a major problem.
Posted by: HarveyD | 26 June 2017 at 07:20 PM
A 6000-gallon gasoline hauler can fill 600 ICEVs per load at 10 gallons/vehicle. Filling only 400 means at least a 50% increase in tanker traffic; filling less than 300 means a 100+% increase.
An FCEV achieving 57 MPkg carrying 5 kg H2 and driving 30 mi/day would have to refill every 9 days, minimum. At 30 mi/day and 57 mi/kg, it would consume 15.8 kg/month and require as much as 11 tankers/1000 vehicles/month.
300 miles of range is low for an ICEV; mine achieves upwards of 550 miles per tank after the battery is exhausted. At 30 miles/day I'd probably refill at ~420 miles or every 14 days, assuming no electricity. That is roughly 19 gallons per month, or about 3.2 tankers/1000 vehicles/month, less than 1/3 the FCEV requirement.
In actuality, I fill my PHEV about 1/quarter. Figuring 12 gallons/tank, that is 500 vehicles/tanker/quarter or about 0.68 tankers/vehicle/month. This is close to 1/5 the ICEV requirement and OTOO 1/16 the FCEV requirement.
FCEVs will require upwards of TEN TIMES the fuel-tanker traffic of PHEVs. This greatly affects road safety. HFCVs are road-safety hazards, QED.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 26 June 2017 at 08:58 PM
Gasoline and diesel oil are major pollutants, have to be imported (in most countries), transported as crude, refine, transported again to distributing stations and burn in polluting ICEs, PHEVs and HEVs.
This process may be efficient due to crude very low cost but too polluting for all of us.
H2 from excess/surplus REs, water and new high efficient electrolizers installed at main/sub H2 stations and used in efficient FCEVs and/or fixed FCs would create a lot less pollution, specially when sub-stations are converted to main stations and very little H2 would have to be transported.
Current rail road power/traction units could be converted with large FCs to reduce noise and pollution. The same main H2 stations could be used for locomotive, trucks and buses.
Posted by: HarveyD | 28 June 2017 at 08:13 AM
Harvey, if you don't transport hydrogen you have to make it on the spot. Storage at stations is limited, so that requires storing energy elsewhere and moving it as electricity. This means converting from electricity, to H2, back to electricity, and again back to H2.
Do the math on volume of transport required, losses both in conversion and in transit, and the specifics on these stations you propose. If you do, you might stop embarrassing yourself.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 June 2017 at 09:43 AM