Overview of the global growth in hydrogen fuelling stations

Japan, Germany and the U.S. continue to have the largest networks while countries such as South Korea and the China already have ambitious plans in place.

In Germany, 17 new public refuelling stations started operation in 2018, further consolidating Germany as the country with the second largest public hydrogen refuelling infrastructure with 60 stations, according to a new report by annual H2stations.org, a website of Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik (LBST) and TÜV SÜD.

Germany is ahead of the U.S.’ 42 stations is and only surpassed by Japan’ 96 public stations. A total of 48 hydrogen refuelling stations were opened worldwide in 2018.

Planning has already started for another 38 dedicated locations of which 34 will be built by the H2Mobility Germany industry initiative.

International extension remains on a steady level in Japan with nine and in California with six hydrogen stations. Also in the Northeast of the USA four stations have been completed and expect commissioning.

New international plans towards a concrete near term deployment of additional refuelling stations are particularly noteworthy in the Netherlands (17 planned stations), France (12), Canada (7), South Korea (27), and China (18) with the quoted numbers corresponding only to stations which have at least a designated city.

The past year saw increasing activities particularly in the use of hydrogen as fuel for trucks. In addition to Nikola Motor and Hyundai, Toyota is also working on the development of fuel cell-powered trucks and their refuelling infrastructure in the USA. In Europe, a fuel cell truck has been operating in Switzerland since 2016.

According to Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik, 152 hydrogen stations are currently in operation in Europe, 136 in Asia, 78 in North America. Of the 369 hydrogen stations worldwide, 273 are publicly accessible and can be used like any conventional retail stations.

H2stations.org provides an updated world map of active hydrogen fuelling stations.