UK & Germany announce investments in Hydrogen Filling Stations

The UK government is investing £11 million to create new hydrogen filling stations in the UK, and Daimler and Linde invest around €20 million in Germany.

The first real world hydrogen powered cars are just starting to hit roads in Europe, and probably the biggest obstacle to their success is a comprehensive refuelling network. But attempts to start to address that problem have now been announced in the UK and Germany.

In the UK, the government is investing £11 million – part-funded by industry – to create new hydrogen filling stations in the UK in the next year.

The money will be spent on upgrading eight existing hydrogen refuelling centres with another seven to be built, and the government will also be stumping up for a fleet of up to 40 FCEVs for public sector use.

In Germany, it’s more a private sector initiative on hydrogen refuelling, withy Daimler partnering up with the Linde Group an teaming with oil and gas companies TOTAL, OMV, Avia and Hyer to attempt to increase significantly the number of hydrogen refuelling stations in Germany.

Daimler and Linde have invested a total of €20 million and have already opened one refuelling station with a total of 20 planned to0 arrive by the end of 2015.

By the standards of petrol filling stations these are small numbers, but it is a start and will hopefully lead to an infrastructure for refuelling hydrogen powered vehicles that will aid the uptake of FCEVs.