- Trading house joins France’s Air Liquide to make long FCV drives convenient.
TOKYO — Japanese trading house Itochu in 2024 will start opening year-round hydrogen stations, Nikkei has learned, a step that will be crucial if hydrogen-powered vehicles are to become conducive to long drives in Japan
Itochu will undertake the project with French gas supplier Air Liquide. The first 365-day hydrogen station will be in Fukushima, to be followed by other locations along major highways.
The companies expect long-haul truckers and bus drivers operating along regular routes to be their main customers. Bus and truck fleet operators have been yearning to adopt hydrogen fuel cell vehicles but have been reticent due to the lack of hydrogen stations that are open 365 days a year.
Japan’s government has set a goal of opening 1,000 hydrogen stations by 2030. So far, only 160 or so exist due to the small number of FCVs and the high cost of building the stations.
Itochu and Air Liquide aim to lower the construction cost by taking advantage of government subsidies and locating the stations next to Itochu-affiliated gas stations, which will allow some facilities to be shared.
There are more than 700 hydrogen stations around the world, of which 185 have been developed by Air Liquide.
The French company has managed to bring the cost of building a hydrogen station down to about half of the cost in Japan.
Air Liquide and Itochu formed a partnership in 2021 to develop hydrogen distribution infrastructure.
None of Japan’s current hydrogen stations operate year-round because each typically has only one pressure-boosting device, which needs to be shut down for one or two weeks every year so it can be inspected.
The devices increase the pressure of hydrogen before the chemical element is loaded into an FCV.
To stay open every day, stations need at least two pressure-boosting devices, which cost as much as 500 million yen ($3.6 million).
Itochu and Air Liquide say they have lowered the cost of the devices to a level where a station can install two devices without sacrificing the bottom line.
SOURCE: NIKKEI Asia
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