Hydrogen refuelling now available in Halle (Saale)

Drivers of fuel-cell powered electric cars can now refuel in the German city of Halle an der Saale. Dr. Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, joined partners PS Union, H2 MOBILITY Deutschland and Linde, in opening the federal state’s second hydrogen station today on the PS Union grounds at Blücherstraße 7.

Germany’s hydrogen filling station network is becoming denser and denser. Already, there are 70 public stations that offer hydrogen (H2) at 700 bar for fuel-cell cars. Another 30 filling stations are under construction. By the turn of the year, hydrogen car drivers will have around 100 H2 filling stations at their disposal [across Germany]. The station at Blücherstraße 7 is located in the northern part of the Neustadt district, not far from the Bundestraße 80 highway, and closes the network gap between Leipzig and Magdeburg.

The project ownerr is H2 MOBILITY Deutschland – a joint venture that is expanding the hydrogen infrastructure in Germany. Its shareholders are Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde, OMV, Shell, and TOTAL. BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota and Volkswagen as well as the NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology advise H2 MOBILITY in their capacity as associated partners. The filling-station technology in Halle (Saale) comes from the gas and technology company Linde. The station is state-of-the-art. Operation of the filling facilities is intuitive; the process is similar to refuelling conventional vehicles and takes three to five minutes.

The deciding factor in the choice of location was the application submitted by the cooperation partners PS Union, JEZ! mobil, Kooperationswerk Chemie+, isw gGmbH, Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS, and Stadtwerke Halle to the H2 MOBILITY Standortaufruf (Call for Locations) 2017, in which Halle prevailed over nearly 30 competitors. The H2 filling station will be integrated into the region’s innovative mobility concept: ten hydrogen-powered vehicles will be added to the PS Union’s Group JEZ! mobil car-sharing offer, and the Stadtwerke Halle municipal utilities will use hydrogen vehicles in their company car-sharing program. The Fraunhofer IMWS and the Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP will also use hydrogen vehicles and collect research data for their further optimisation. Other companies that will be supplementing their vehicle fleets with hydrogen-powered vehicles include municipal waste disposal and housing companies.

E-Mobility with hydrogen reduces CO2 emissions

Hydrogen offers an opportunity to expand the range of fuels available in the transport sector in a climate-friendly way: the use of hydrogen produced with renewable energy can significantly reduce climate-damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Operating a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle causes no local pollutants or CO2 emissions. The range of these vehicles is between 500 and 700 kilometres on a full tank. For the construction of the hydrogen station in Halle (Saale), H2 MOBILITY received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU). The Joint Undertaking is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation, as well as by Hydrogen Europe and Hydrogen Europe Research..

Participants’ comments on the opening of the H2-Station Halle (Saale):

Lorenz Jung, Network Delivery H2 MOBILITY Deutschland GmbH & Co.KG: “Hydrogen plays a crucial role in the transport and traffic turnaround. High ranges, short refuelling times and zero local emissions are the crucial criteria. H2 MOBILITY Deutschland is building the necessary infrastructure.”

Dr Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, praised fuel-cell technology as an alternative to conventional drive systems: “A similar handling to conventional filling stations, comparable speeds and ranges – and all of it nearly without noise and pollutants. This hydrogen filling station, Saxony-Anhalt’s second after Magdeburg, closes a further gap in the hydrogen supply network.”

Dr Christian Bruch, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG: “Hydrogen technology plays a decisive role in the successful spread of electromobility – and Linde technologies ensure high efficiency at all key points in the value chain.”

Volker Ciesiolka, Chairman & Managing Director PS Union GmbH and JEZ! mobil GmbH: “The opening of the hydrogen filling station completes our multi-energy filling station at the PS Union headquarters. Alongside conventional fuels, hydrogen can now finally be added to natural gas and electricity. I am very confident that all these types of drive will continue to exist going forward, and will become established in accordance with their areas of use and application. We are very proud that we are already able to offer ‘company car-sharing’ of hydrogen vehicles through our JEZ! mobil car-sharing platform. In the future, we also plan to expand hydrogen vehicles in the free-floating category, to be able to promote electromobility in this type of use as well.”

Professor Dr Ralf B. Wehrspohn, Director Fraunhofer IMWS: “For many years, our institute has been working to expand the applications of green hydrogen and to demonstrate and enhance the performance of hydrogen technologies. This new filling station gives us a very successful example in our immediate neighbourhood of how hydrogen can contribute to sector coupling and sustainable mobility.”

isw gGmbH with the cooperation network Chemie+: “The expansion and dissemination of hydrogen technology is important to isw gGmbH and the cooperation network Chemie+. We see the development of a regenerative hydrogen economy in the Central German chemicals triangle – across the value chain, from production to recycling – as the/our goal. So this filling station makes a valuable contribution to establishing new and environmentally friendly branches of industry in the region and to the gradual introduction of low-CO2 chemicals.”

Matthias Lux, Chairman Managing Director of Stadtwerke Halle GmbH: “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. As a sustainable and innovative municipal utility company, we began occupying ourselves with environmentally friendly, alternative drives long ago. We welcome the use of hydrogen as part of regional mobility strategies and with a view to cutting down on CO2, because it is a good complement to electric and natural gas drives in the emergence of alternative drives. As a partner, we were happy to support the construction of the new hydrogen filling station.”

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