Baden-Württemberg, Germany gets its first public hydrogen filling station

By admin | Jun 21, 2009

The first publicly-accessible hydrogen filling station in the German state of Baden-Württemberg opened this week at Stuttgart Airport. The station is being operated by OMV and was built in cooperation with Daimler and chemical supplier Linde. The new station utilizes Linde’s ion-compressor technology and supports both 350 BAR and 700 BAR filling. Aside from Honda’s FCX Clarity, which stores hydrogen at 350 BAR, most other automakers have moved to 700 BAR storage which allows for a greater range. The new station is the first such project for OMV, which operates 400 gas stations in Germany.

Daimler is planning to launch low volume series production of the B-Class F-Cell later this year. Linde produces the hydrogen for this station from steam reformation of natural gas which cuts CO₂ emissions 30 percent compared to modern diesel engines. Linde is also working on a new process to produce hydrogen from biogenic feedstocks. A pilot production facility using this process should be coming online later this year. The Daimler press release is after the jump.

Gallery: Stuttgart Airport H2 station