Hydrogen mobility: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at a Multi-Energy Service Station

Fanny Cacherat, Hydrogen Business Developper - TotalEnergies Hydrogen Mobility Solutions

We are in a multifuel station which offers electricity, conventional fuel, but also hydrogen as you can see behind me.

TotalEnergies opened its first hydrogen station in 2002 in Berlin, Germany. As of today, within TotalEnergies’ network, we have around 30 hydrogen stations in Europe.

We are offering 350 bar for heavy duty vehicles and also 700 bar for also heavy duty and light duty vehicles like passenger cars, for example.

Hydrogen refueling stations are a little bit different than conventional fuel stations. For instance, we are actually compressing a gas as opposed to pumping a liquid. It means that we need to first bring the molecules on site. We can either do that with a tube trailer or we can also produce the molecules directly on site, for example through an electrolyzer. We then compress this hydrogen into the desired pressure. We are storing this hydrogen at high pressure inside the station. Because we are limited to a certain temperature inside the vehicle, we also need to add a cooling block inside the installation to be able to deliver hydrogen into the vehicle.

Customers with heavy duty trucks, for example, are in the need of a long range or long autonomy and also, a short refueling time. And that’s exactly why hydrogen makes sense because we are able to fill these needs.

Hydrogen-powered truck driver

My experience with the H2 truck is that it’s a lot cleaner, what is good for the people working on it but also for the environment. You have less sound, almost no sound, which is good for the people working on the back but also for the people living in the city. And the refueling time is almost the same as diesel trucks.

Fanny Cacherat

Hydrogen will play a crucial role in the energy transition. Alongside other solutions like battery, hydrogen will help us support our customers in decarbonizing their transport.