European project to gain customer acceptance for electric vehicles with fuel cells in Scandinavia

Ten Mercedes‐Benz B‐class F‐CELL cars from Daimler (Germany), two Alfa Romeo MiTo fuel cell vehicles from Centro Ricerche FIAT (Italy) and five electric city cars with fuel cell range extension from H2 Logic (Denmark) will in 2011 be provided for daily operation in Oslo and on specific tours in southern Norway and the whole Scandinavian region.

A hydrogen refuelling station from H2 Logic will be designed and built in Oslo. The objective is to provide hydrogen with a fully integrated purchase interface and in an urban environment within one of the densest hydrogen fuelling station network in Europe. The station will comply with the latest international hydrogen refuelling standard SAE J2601 that ensures a safe and fast refuelling in few minutes with the same ease of use and convenience as today. The hydrogen supply will be based on a combination of onsite production and trucked‐in hydrogen, all based on Norwegian electricity of which more than 90% is based on renewable hydro and wind power.

During the project some of the fuel cell vehicles will be employed on a European hydrogen vehicle demonstration tour, coordinated by Hydrogen Sweden and in collaboration with the European Regions’ and Municipalities’ Partnership on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells (HyRaMP).
 For the on‐site refuelling of hydrogen during the vehicle demonstration tours H2 Logic will also develop a mobile hydrogen refuelling concept for provision of almost 100% CO2 free hydrogen. A safety and certification study will be carried out by TÜV SÜD, (Germany) and SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden to identify the certification gaps in Scandinavia to accelerate full commercialization of vehicles and fuelling stations.

The € 19,5 million project called H2MOVES will be the first large scale demonstration project supported by the newly established European Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking Programme.