Air Products has detailed the company’s plans for a hydrogen transport network in London. Speaking at an industry event in Bristol, Emma Guthrie, Air Products’ business development manager for hydrogen energy, said that Air Products expected to add two new fuelling stations in London in the near future to create a network of five.
Air Products has already installed two central London located fuelling stations at Heathrow and in East London, but now has plans for another East London station and a second centrally located fuelling station as part of the CHIC (Clean Hydrogen In European Cities) Project, which saw the Transport for London hydrogen bus station installed in December 2010. The fifth station in the network is just north of London at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedford.
The event was held in Bristol, close to Air Products’ latest hydrogen transport project – a 12 seater hydrogen powered passenger ferry. The zero emission ferry, named Hydrogenesis in a school competition, will transport commuters and tourists around Bristol harbour for six hours each day.
The ferry will be up and running by the end of this year and will travel at speeds of six to ten knots, powered by a 12kW fuel cell. The ferry was made by Bristol Hydrogen Boats – a consortium of No 7 Boat Trips, the Bristol Packet, and Auriga Energy and is supported by Bristol City Council. Air Products is providing the hydrogen and the fuelling station that will keep the ferry running.
Guthrie, commented, “Air Products sees the short term future of hydrogen transport in the UK as based around clusters of hydrogen infrastructure and London is ideal for this. Five hydrogen fuelling stations in London are enough to make it possible for a number of fleets of buses, cars and other vehicles to build a real presence for hydrogen transport in the capital.”
On the Bristol ferry project, Guthrie added, “Air Products is providing the hydrogen and the fuelling station for this project because we believe it is exactly these kind of innovative ideas that will get the general public, industry and government to take notice of hydrogen. If the UK is to cut emissions from transport then hydrogen has to be part of the transport mix.”
