Hydrogen infrastructure is often seen as the major challenge in establishing a hydrogen-based logistics system. Hydrogen refueling stations are scarce today. There are currently over 110 hydrogen refueling stations (350 bar and 700 bar) in operation in Germany. In comparison, the number of gasoline and diesel refueling stations in Germany is more than 14,000. Setting up a hydrogen refueling station requires considerable investment as well as a value chain for hydrogen supply.
We plan and constructs hydrogen refueling stations in integrated projects with multiple stakeholders, such as refueling station operators, fleet operators, truck manufacturers and eventually also with stakeholders from politics. In these projects, various concepts for the hydrogen refueling station network are first developed for delimited areas or predefined routes and for the vehicle fleet to be refueled. The concepts are developed using our HRS-simulation program developed in cooperation with TLK Energy. The concepts include the distribution, the number as well as the design of the hydrogen refueling stations. Among others, the design includes the hydrogen supply, the storage tanks, the cooling system, and the dispensers. The individual concepts are optimized for different target values, which can be represented, for example, by hydrogen availability, leak tightness, throughput, and costs, respectively. The developed concepts provide the decision basis for the customer to select the most suitable concept according to the requirements of the use case. Once a decision has been made on a concept to be implemented, detailed planning and optimization and the physical construction of the hydrogen refueling stations begin.
