Shell to roll-out hydrogen pumps at European petrol stations

Petrol stations around Europe will soon begin to offer hydrogen fuel pumps alongside their standard unleaded and diesel options, as a means of encouraging greater adoption of hydrogen powered fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

Having last month agreed to a small UK pilot programme where hydrogen will be sold from three petrol forecourts in south east England, Shell on Tuesday agreed to install a huge nationwide network of 400 hydrogen fuelling pumps at petrol stations around Germany and is examining the potential to expand this in the USA, UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and several other countries in Europe.

Shell sees hydrogen vehicle uptake as "a chicken and egg situation", with FCEVs only becoming attractive to customers if there is a refuelling infrastructure in place, while establishing and maintaining investment in fuelling infrastructure is only commercially attractive and sustainable if there are enough FCEV customers.

London is a key test-bed for the UK hydrogen economy and also on Tuesday, the city took delivery of a dozen new zero-emission vehicles from Toyota, powered by hydrogen fuel cells made by UK-based ITM Power, while Mayor of London Boris Johnson also timed a visit to the Japanese headquarters of the car manufacturer on the same day.

Hydrogen powered vehicles emit no emissions from the exhaust pipe, just water vapour, and have a comparable driving range, speed and refuelling time to normal cars.

While hydrogen is an abundant element, not much of it exists in the pure, compressed form that fuel cells require, which means it must be extracted from other compounds such as water or methane.

Shell noted that the CO2 footprint of hydrogen produced from electricity - via electrolysis with water - depends on the CO2 intensity of the power source, with electricity to make hydrogen though electrolysis one way of potentially absorbing surplus wind and solar energy at times of low power demand.

In Germany, a joint venture, called H2 Mobility Deutschland, between Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde, OMV, Shell and Total is designed to progress the commercialisation of hydrogen.

Shell said hydrogen one of a number of options it is actively developing to reduce emissions from transport.

“H2 Mobility Germany shows what we can achieve through close collaboration between governments and business," said Oliver Bishop, Shell's general manager of hydrogen. "The next step is for consumers to embrace this opportunity and consider buying hydrogen vehicles as they become available.”

As well as its three in the south east of England, Shell currently operates three hydrogen stations in Germany, including one in Berlin and two in Hamburg, where pumps refuel hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) in a few minutes.