Drivers of electric cars with fuel cells can refill their tanks at more and more filling stations: The joint venture H2 Mobility Deutschland and its shareholders Shell and Air Liquide have now opened another hydrogen (H2) filling station in Leverkusen. A new H2 station simultaneously went into operation in Essen – the ninth and tenth in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Fuel-cell powered electric vehicles run on hydrogen. The advantages: no noise, no pollutants, but the same utility, speed, and range as cars with petrol or diesel engines. Hydrogen vehicles have ranges of 500 to 800 kilometres and can refuel in just three minutes.
The network of stations where fuel-cell vehicles can fuel with hydrogen is becoming ever denser: there are currently 62 H2 filling stations in Germany, including Cologne, Düsseldorf, Mülheim, and Wuppertal. By the end of 2019, there are to be 100, with other stations in places like Mönchengladbach, Aachen, Dortmund, and Duisburg already nearing completion.
The new H2 station in Leverkusen was built using technology supplied by Air Liquide. Its location, the Shell filling station at Karl-Krekeler-Strasse 2, is conveniently located near the Leverkusen motorway junction, just 500 metres from the A3 slip road.
The hydrogen station in Leverkusen is funded by the European Commission through the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU) in the Hydrogen Mobility Europe (H2ME) project.