Air Products opens India's first solar-powered hydrogen fuelling station

The US-based leading industrial gases company Air Products recently opened India’s first solar-powered renewable fuelling station in Delhi. Part of a mass public transport bus fuelling and vehicle demonstration program, the SmartFuel station, which was inaugurated by Piyush Goyal (minister for power, coal, and new & renewable energy), generates 100 percent renewable hydrogen from solar energy via an electrolyser. It is located at the Solar Energy Center near Delhi and part of a project managed by the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE). The project was also implemented by India’s University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) and funded by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) of the Government of India.
 
Ravi Subramanian, business development manager - Asia for Air Products’ Hydrogen Energy Systems, said, “As a member of industry, Air Products is proud to be involved in a program that has received such crucial validation and support from public sector, educational institute and the regulatory authorities. This project is an important, progressive step towards unlocking the potential of hydrogen as a sustainable transportation fuel and alternative energy source, not just for India but the rest of the world.”
 
UPES is executing this project and it is entirely funded by MNRE. “Although this is a demonstration project, this will be a major stepping stone for India to move towards the hydrogen economy,” says Dr Niranjan Raje, former director of Indian Oil and the principal investigator for this project.
 
With the addition of this SmartFuel station, Air Products now has three hydrogen fuelling stations operating in India. Air Products India installed, and in January 2012 commissioned, a hydrogen fuelling dispenser in Pragati Maidan, Delhi to serve a fleet of hydrogen powered auto rickshaws. Air Products was also a key player in the opening of India’s first hydrogen/HCNG fuelling station several years ago at a research and development centre in Faridabad, south of New Delhi.
 
Worldwide, Air Products is the leading supplier of hydrogen to refineries to assist in producing cleaner burning transportation fuels and has vast experience in the hydrogen fuelling industry. In fact, several sites today for certain hydrogen fuelling applications are fuelling at rates of over 75,000 refills per year. Use of the company’s fuelling technology is increasing and is over 1,000,000 hydrogen fills per year. The company has been involved in over 180 hydrogen fuelling projects worldwide. Cars, trucks, vans, buses, scooters, forklifts, locomotives, planes, cell towers, material handling equipment, and even submarines have been fuelled with trend-setting Air Products technologies.