Hydrogen stations are popping up everywhere in Europe (see our map) and will continue to achieve the goal of having one every 150km. But how does a hydrogen station work exactly? Today, I have a discussion with Simon Keusching, global Key Account Manager for Dover Fueling Solutions® (DFS), focusing on hydrogen solutions. DFS has experience of more than 130 years in the fuel and convenience retail industry and officially launched the DFS Hydrogen dispenser in 2022.
Claire: What is the specificity of constructing a hydrogen station?
To explain how innovative it is, I like to compare it with diesel stations. There are some safety rules associated with both, obviously, but the process is pretty simple.
For hydrogen it is highly different because there is a full hydrogen process plant within the station, aggregating a lot of engineering components.
C: Could you detail that hydrogen process happening within the station?
There are five main components aggregated:
· The offloading panel: it takes hydrogen from the tube trailer to the compressor
· The compressor: when you start to onload, at the beginning, you have a lot pressure in the tube trailer (350bar). But as the tube trailer is emptying, the pressure decreases also. The compressor works then to put more pressure on the hydrogen. The compressor also raises the pressure up to 450 bar so that more hydrogen can be stored on the station and the filling can be done quicker. For Heavy Duty Truck, the tank needs to be filled with 350 bar and 700 bar for passenger cars.
· The buffer: we need to store some hydrogen at high pressure in the station to make sure it is available any time at the right pressure and to store more hydrogen
· The cooling system: when we load a vehicle with hydrogen, and the charging is fast, it is heating a lot and could be dangerous: so we need to cool the hydrogen before. It could be done without cooling, but it would be longer.
· The dispenser and the nozzle: this part is responsible to regulate the pressure, the temperature, the flow and the quantity “delivered” into the car.
It looks complex inside but for a user the experience is very similar: very fast!
C: We see a lot of new energy solutions for vehicles, and it is sometime confusing to know which one to choose. What is your opinion on that?
Indeed, there are a lot of alternative fuels, at the moment. For example:
· Gas, CNG, LPG, LNG. These are still fossil fuels that burn in the engine. They reduce emissions by around 30%.
· Bio-gas. This is also a solution that we can liquify and use in the same infrastructure as LNG. Transforming waste into gas is also an interesting solution but it still emits CO2 when the vehicle runs.
For me, the main solutions for the future are:
· Green hydrogen: for heavy duty trucks, vehicles running a lot, etc.
· Decarbonized electricity: for light cars.
· E-fuels produced with green hydrogen for even more powerful solutions.
Hydrogen is still at the beginning, what are the next hurdles to come across?
The goal is to standardize the equipment and the mass production of every component. Almost every player of the hydrogen value chain has to scale up in the upcoming years. The demand is here but we need to have the right people, the right components and we need them quickly.
The positive points are that there is a lot of private and public investments done, AND now, it looks like everyone starts to align on a big ambition for hydrogen.
You want to learn more about hydrogen at Dover Fueling solutions? Discover their podcast episodes:
