Hydrogen station

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A hydrogen station is a storage or filling station for hydrogen, usually located along a road or hydrogen highway, or at home as part of the distributed generation resources concept. Vehicles use hydrogen as fuel in one of several ways, including fuel cells and hydrogen boosted engines^[1] among others.

1 Hydrogen filling stations
2 Hydrogen home stations
3 Hydrogen highway
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Hydrogen filling stations

Photo of hydrogen fueling pump in Las Vegas, Nevada

In 2000, Ford and Air Products opened the first hydrogen station in North America in Dearborn, MI.^[2]

Since the turn of the millennium, filling stations offering hydrogen have been opening worldwide. However, this does not begin to replace the existing extensive gasoline fuel station infrastructure, which would cost a half trillion U.S. dollars in the United States alone.^[3] The hydrogen fueling stations include the following:

Some fuel stations in Germany, within the Clean Energy Partnership, are offering hydrogen.
Bus refueling stations in a small number of European cities as part of the Clean Urban Transport for Europe programme.
Iceland began opening stations in 2003 as part of the country's initiative to implement a hydrogen economy.^[4]
Stations in California opened by the California Fuel Cell Partnership, and under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Hydrogen Highway program.
A Washington DC Shell gas station on Benning Road sells mostly gasoline but also has one hydrogen pump. President George W. Bush made news by visiting the station (Shell Hydrogen).
Japan has a number of hydrogen filling stations run by the Japan hydrogen fuel cell project to test various technologies of hydrogen generation.
British Columbia, Canada is building a seven node hydrogen refueling station network from Victoria to Whistler timed to coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The node in Surrey was the first in the world to deliver hydrogen at 70 MPa, and is the longest operational node in the network, having been supplying hydrogen since March 2002.^[5]
Proton Energy Systems and Northern Power, both wholly owned subsidiaries of Distributed Energy Systems (Nasdaq: DESC), were contracted by EVermont to build an advanced demonstration hydrogen fueling station in Burlington, VT. The project was partially funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Program.

A hydrogen filling station opened in 2006 on the campus of The Ohio State University at the Center for Automotive Research. This station is the only one in Ohio.^[6]
A prototype Hydrogen fueling station was built in compliance with all of the prevailing safety, environmental and building codes in Phoenix to demonstrate that such fueling stations could be built in urban areas.^[7]
Hynor, Norway's first hydrogen fueling station was opened in February, 2007.
The UK has opened its first hydrogen filling station at the University of Birmingham.^[8]

[edit] Hydrogen home stations

Hydrogen home stations come in different types.

A solar powered water electrolysing hydrogen home station, is made of solar cells, power converter, water purifier, electrolyzer, piping, hydrogen purifier,^[9] oxygen purifier, compressor^[10], pressure vessels^[11] and a hydrogen outlet.^[12]

A more complete home station would combine the solar home system on the inlet with natural gas and a reformer ^[13] and from the storage tank to a fuel cell microchp system to produce heat and electricity for the house and the excess electricity to the grid to become part as a distributed generation resource.

Integrated systems that convert solar energy photoelectrochemically are more efficient than splitting water. ^[14]

January 2007 - Australia's CSIRO has developed a hydrogen homestation based on electricity from standard rooftop solarpanels or a home wind turbine with an electrolyzer including compression and storage ready for use, the size of a filing cabinet, the expected market price would be $500 according to Sukhvinder Badwal. Extensive testing of the system will be going on for the next 2 years at RMIT University in Melbourne^[15].

Home Energy Station IV is in testing phase.
The Hopewell Project an oversized pilot homestation by Michael Strizki.^[16]
The Chewonki Renewable Hydrogen Project opened on August 28, 2006 in Wiscasset, Maine.
The Stuart Island Energy Iniative.^[17]
The homefueler and HyStat-A Energy Station ^[18]

[edit] Hydrogen highway

A hydrogen highway is a chain of hydrogen-equipped filling stations and other infrastructure along a road or highway. Italy and Germany are building in collaboration a hydrogen highway between Mantova (Italy) and Munich (Germany). Italy has already built a hydrogen filling station in Mantova and it has been completed on 21 September 2007. See Zero Regio .