Air Liquide will deliver the first hydrogen station in the first quarter of 2010, for a government demonstration project led by the automaker Hyundai Motor Company. The station, which will supply hydrogen at a pressure of 350 bar (5000 psi), will be installed at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), located on the island of Jeju.
KIER, the leading Korean research and development institute for renewable energy, is one of the beneficiaries of the Korean government’s national plan to promote the development of hydrogen energy. This station will supply hydrogen to a new fuel cell vehicle developed by Hyundai Motor.
Air Liquide will deliver the second hydrogen station in the second quarter of 2010, to the Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute (KATRI). It will include dual pressure technology developed by Air Liquide for different types of fuel cell vehicles. It will be used to fuel a bus at a pressure of 350 bar, and various cars at pressures of 350 and 700 bar (10 000 psi). The station will be installed close to the KATRI Gyeonggi-do race track, which is used for testing and research to improve vehicle safety.
The hydrogen fueling stations for Korea are based on patented Air Liquide technologies, which enable vehicles to fill up in less than 5 minutes in the same conditions as traditional fuels, for a driving range that can reach up to 500 km (310 miles) for some vehicles.
Over the last four years, Air Liquide has designed, built, and commissioned a growing number of hydrogen fueling stations. Air Liquide has installed 46 hydrogen stations around the world to date.
In Canada, the airports in Montreal and Vancouver are installing these stations to supply part of their fleet of commercial vehicles. Another station will supply the fleet of 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses that are being deployed during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler and Vancouver.
‘These new installations in Korea are contributing to putting in place all the conditions required for the successful deployment of hydrogen energy in transport by 2015,’ says François Darchis, Senior Vice-President at Air Liquide Group, in charge of R&D, Advanced Technologies and Engineering & Construction. ‘They illustrate the increasing number of demonstration projects, and the development of this energy vector.’
Air Liquide is coordinating the European Hychain-Minitrans program, which is field testing a range of hydrogen vehicles in four European regions. The group is also coordinating the Horizon Hydrogen Energy (H2E) program, which is supported by the French agency for innovation, OSEO.