Hydrogen filling stations: 110 million euros for infrastructure expansion in Germany

Created: 04/01/2022, 14:10

By: Sebastian Oppenheimer

Is there a breakthrough for hydrogen drives?

A large H2 filling station operator in Germany has now secured considerable financial resources.

Berlin – Most car manufacturers are currently under power – and primarily rely on electric vehicles.

There are currently only two hydrogen cars available in Germany: the Hyundai Nexo and the Toyota Mirai.

Both vehicles convert the hydrogen into energy with the help of a fuel cell – in which researchers in Korea were recently able to achieve an extreme increase in performance using a new technology.

But there is also another approach: the hydrogen combustion engine – Yamaha recently developed such a unit for a car manufacturer.

A major problem when it comes to hydrogen drives, however, is the infrastructure at the moment – ​​but that should now change with a financial injection, as 24auto.de reports.

Hydrogen filling stations: 110 million euros for infrastructure expansion in Germany

According to its own statements, the leading operator of hydrogen filling stations in Germany, H2 Mobility, has now been able to secure 110 million euros in funding.

Hy24 is contributing 70 million euros

The company announced that it was the world's largest investment platform for hydrogen, which could be won as a new investor.

The remaining 40 million contributed the existing shareholders Air Liquide, Daimler Truck, Hyundai, Linde, OMV, Shell and TotalEnergies.

The hydrogen filling station operator H2 Mobility wants to expand the network with the help of a cash injection.

(Iconic image) © Ole Spata/dpa

Hydrogen filling stations: H2 Mobility wants to expand its own network to 300 filling stations

H2 Mobility currently operates around 90 hydrogen filling stations in Germany and now wants to use the money to expand the network to 300 filling stations by 2030.

200 filling stations are to be expanded into so-called large-scale facilities in order to meet the demand for heavy goods and long-distance transport.

With the new filling stations, H2 Mobility wants to focus on "several highly frequented traffic corridors".

In fact, according to a survey, many Germans want hydrogen as the “type of drive of the future”: 32 percent favored H2, while only 14.8 percent of those surveyed saw electric vehicles as the technology of the future.

Hydrogen filling stations: This is how many were in operation worldwide at the end of 2021

According to the h2stations.org website, 685 hydrogen refueling stations were operational worldwide at the end of 2021, 142 of which had become operational during the year.

Most of them started in Asia (89), in Europe there were only 37 filling stations, in North America just 13. In Europe there were 228 hydrogen filling stations on the network at the end of 2021, most of them (101) in Germany, followed by France with 41 hydrogen filling stations and Switzerland with 12.