First hydrogen refuelling station for heavy vehicles opens

Australia’s first hydrogen refuelling station for heavy vehicles has now opened at Port Kembla in NSW.

Opened by Australian owned industrial gases company, Coregas, the $2 million H2Station was built with the assistance of a $500,000 NSW Government grant and is able to rapidly refuel up to 10 vehicles daily.

Coregas says its H2Station is a low-cost commercial solution capitalising on existing infrastructure aimed to seed a future network of hydrogen fuelled transport.

The company hopes it will help facilitate the introduction of zero emissions hydrogen fuel cell trucks to the Illawarra-Shoalhaven region.

“Locating H2Station alongside Coregas’ existing hydrogen production plant and transport hub for bulk hydrogen in Port Kembla created operational and cost efficiencies,” said Alan Watkins, executive general manager at Coregas in Australia.

“The H2Station will allow hydrogen trucks to access the majority of the Illawarra-Shoalhaven region and reach metropolitan Sydney.”

Transitioning Coregas’ diesel truck fleet to FCEVs is a cornerstone of the company’s decarbonisation roadmap. “Coregas’ diesel truck fleet travels almost 6 million kilometres every year,” added Watkins.

“That’s equivalent to driving 150 times around the world, which contributes to 54 per cent of Coregas’ carbon emissions.”

Working with project partner Haskel, the H2Station will compress hydrogen from the existing Coregas plant up to 500bar, enabling supply into the 350bar cylinders on board the FCEV.

The hydrogen dispensing system has the capacity to discharge 400 kilograms of fuel cell grade hydrogen. “The hydrogen system utilises our world-leading compression, storage and dispensing equipment specifically designed and optimised for Port Kembla,” said Stewart Anderson, Haskel Hydrogen business development manager (APAC).