“The water will be the coal of the future,” said District President Marc Mächler at the Kubel hydropower plant in the Sitter Gorge.
He was quoting the French writer Jules Verne, who said that as early as 1870. Well, around 150 years later, the dream is also becoming a reality in Eastern Switzerland: the groundbreaking ceremony began with the construction of a plant for the production of hydrogen from electricity from the St.Gallen power plant.
The hydrogen, in turn, will power trucks. Because if you want to get away from CO 2 , then hydrogen will play an important role, especially in heavy traffic, said Mächler.
“This is how we get one step closer to our climate goals.”
The foundation stone for the plant was laid two years ago. At that time, the St.Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke and Avia Osterwalder founded a joint venture, Hydrogen Production Ostschweiz AG, which is now building this plant. It was a long way to go before construction began, said Reto Zuglian, Head of Production at SAK, longer than originally thought. But that also has advantages. “We get the latest system for the same money.”
Over 200 tons of hydrogen
The shell should be ready in January, then the actual system will be installed. “We should be able to start production in the summer of 2022,” Zuglian said. The plant will have an electrical output of 2.5 megawatts and will be able to produce between 220 and 250 tons of hydrogen per year.
The hydrogen is used very close by. A hydrogen filling station from Avia Osterwalder on St.Galler Oberstrasse has been in operation since last year. A second one is to be opened by December at the latest, much closer to the customer: at the Spar distribution center in St.Gallen Winkeln: The major distributors Migros, Coop and Spar have distribution centers between St.Gallen and Gossau and all of them already have hydrogen trucks in use. In total there are just under a dozen in Eastern Switzerland.
46 trucks are already driving with H2
The trucks, the hydrogen production and the filling stations are part of a Switzerland-wide hydrogen ecosystem. 46 hydrogen trucks are already on the road. Nine hydrogen filling stations are already in operation across the country. The hydrogen for this is produced in a hydropower plant in Niedergösgen – and it is slowly becoming scarce for the network of filling station operators and transport companies that use the trucks. “The trucks have already driven 1.7 million kilometers,” said Martin Osterwalder, Co-CEO of the Osterwalder Group.
With this project of the H2 Mobility Switzerland association, Switzerland is the world market leader, said Osterwalder. “In no other country in the world are mass-produced hydrogen trucks on the road every day.” And the hydrogen ecosystem continues to grow. 1600 trucks are to be in use by 2025.
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