Shell Hydrogen (US) has opened the first hydrogen dispenser at a retail gasoline station to service a fleet of six fuel cell vehicles from GM, the companies have announced.
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Located in northeast Washington, D.C., the station is part of a collaboration between Shell and GM to demonstrate hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and refuelling infrastructure technology.
Shell will offer both compressed and liquid hydrogen at the Benning Road station.
“Today marks the next major step in Shell Hydrogen’s effort to make a substantial advance and move research further into reality,” said Jeremy Bentham, chief executive officer of Shell Hydrogen. “The Benning Road station in Washington, D.C. represents a real-world urban-driving scenario to demonstrate hydrogen cars and refuelling.”
According to Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of research and development and planning, the only way the hydrogen economy will come about is if local communities, government, energy companies and automotive companies work together.
“The only way the Hydrogen Economy will be realized is having not only fuel cell vehicles, but also convenient places to refuel and local communities that will support this transition to a new energy source,” Burns said. “I want to applaud both the local community and Shell on this important milestone.
“I believe the opening of this station is a historic moment,” Burns continued. “We will look back on this day and realize that it was a watershed moment — the moment when we started down a new path to a future where we have readily available hydrogen, made from renewable feedstocks, to power our vehicles and energize our economy.”
Shell claims that it has developed a ‘realistic understanding of the importance of hydrogen and the steps necessary to make this happen’.
The following is Shell’s step-by-step approach to development of the hydrogen mass market:
1. Step One – Stand-alone projects with restricted access (like depots for hydrogen-fuelled buses)
2. Step Two – Second generation sites, with public access, but separate from existing gasoline stations (e.g. the facility Shell opened in Iceland in April 2003 which supplies hydrogen made from water to three city buses)
3. Step Three – Fully integrated fuel stations (traditional fuels and hydrogen)
4. Step Four – Within the next five years, mini-network “Lighthouse Projects” (semi-commercial, public-private partnerships involving multiple energy companies, governments, and fleets of 100 or more vehicles)
5. Step 5 – 2010-2020 connecting the mini-networks with corridors and filling in the white spaces
