Partners H₂ MOBILITY Deutschland, Shell and Air Liquide today launched the operations optimization phase at the Shell filling station at Im Großen Tal 1. Fuel cell buses and cars can now refuel with H₂ in Düren as well.

The H₂ filling station is now regularly available for refueling H₂ buses and trucks at 350 bar and passenger cars at 700 bar. Part of the commissioning process, operations optimization is a standard procedure during which final work is still being carried out in the background.

“I am very pleased that it is now also possible to refuel with hydrogen in the Düren district. This is another important building block in our hydrogen strategy. The filling station is enormously important to further advance the innovation topic of hydrogen,” said District Administrator Wolfgang Spelthahn.

“Rurtalbus GmbH is pleased to be able to use the state-of-the-art hydrogen filling station in such a convenient location for the hydrogen fleet with immediate effect. This hydrogen filling station represents an important infrastructure facility for the steadily growing hydrogen bus fleet for the next few years and is an essential building block for the stepwise conversion of the bus fleet to hydrogen,” said Nik Asbach, Managing Director of Rurtalbus.

H₂ is used to power fuel cell electric vehicles. Their advantages: no noise and no pollutants, but the same use, speed, and range as vehicles with petrol or diesel engines. H₂ cars have ranges of up to 700 km and refuel in just three to five minutes; buses, like conventional buses, need about 15 minutes to refuel, for a range of up to 300 km.

The Düren H₂ station is conveniently located on the A4 motorway and closes the supply gap between Cologne and Aachen. The station complements the 19 H₂ filling stations in NRW to date.

The district of Düren already operates three H₂ vehicles in its fleet, as well as five H₂ buses. H₂ cars are also in use in neighboring municipalities. Once the Brainergy Park in Jülich is completed, the filling station can be supplied with green, regeneratively produced H₂.

Europe’s leading operator of H₂ filling stations, H₂ MOBILITY Deutschland, is responsible for the H₂ filling station’s construction and operation. The filling station technology at the new H₂ filling station is supplied by the industrial gases and technology company Air Liquide. More than 500 kilograms of H₂ are stored at the station, and vehicles can be refueled at two pressure levels, 700 and 350 bar.

The Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport funded the construction of the H₂ filling station with a total of €1.37 MM under its National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Innovation Program. The funding directive is coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by the Jülich Project Management.