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For some months now, more and more companies have been entering the market for H2 refueling stations. Although their total number still have not substantially increased, increasingly more well-established as well as numerous new providers are announcing their intentions of opening additional locations for the supply of hydrogen.
We have long discussed the question of what comes first when ramping up hydrogen mobility. But this chicken-and-egg problem doesn’t actually exist: The refueling station always comes first! Why this is so exemplifies the first hydrogen refueling station in Gießen.
For years, H2 Mobility has been working on the establishment and expansion of the infrastructure for hydrogen refueling stations. Despite the ambitiously set targets, the 100-station mark has still not been exceeded. Although more new H2 refueling stations are being built and opened, old ones are being dismantled at the same rate. Six and a half years after its founding, H2 Mobility Deutschland executed a change of leadership in April 2023: Nikolas Iwan, who alone has managed the company since the beginning, moved to the advisory board, where he is to take over as chairman in the course of the year. Iwan was replaced by a team of three managing directors. H2-international talked to CCO and spokesman Lorenz Jung about the reasons for this restructuring as well as the further goals of the company.
Gaseous or liquid hydrogen? It’s a dilemma facing everyone involved in the refueling of heavy-duty vehicles. It makes no difference to the power system whether the fuel is a gas or a liquid as the fuel cells can process the hydrogen regardless. In infrastructure terms, however, it’s another matter. The consensus among experts is that it’s not economically viable for fuel station operators to support every available technology in the long run. One alternative is cryogas, which is produced by cooling pressurized gas to extremely low temperatures or by directly compressing liquid hydrogen. Work is currently underway to deliver cryogas tank systems that will give a range of around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), the CryoTRUCK project and the Salzburger Aluminium Group initiative being prime examples.
