Hydrogen refuelling infrastructure firm H2 Mobility has raised €110mn ($122mn) to finance the expansion of its network.

Hydrogen fund Hy24 will invest €70mn in the company, with industrial gases firms Air Liquide and Linde, vehicle manufacturers Daimler Truck and Hyundai, Austrian oil and gas group OMV, Shell and TotalEnergies also contributing to the capital raise.

The investment will be used to upgrade the firm’s network of 90 stations and to expand that network to 300 stations by 2030. Of these, more than 200 will be large-scale refuelling stations capable of servicing long-haul hydrogen trucks.

The expansion will be focused on several high-traffic transportation corridors across Germany and the EU. The firm says the network will be developed in tandem with public authorities and fleet operators, guaranteeing a baseline offtake for the stations and thereby reducing commercial risk.

“Green hydrogen will become a game changer on the journey to replace fossil fuels in transport and to reduce our dependency on extracting resources from our planet’s surface,” says Nikolas Iwan, managing director of H2 Mobility.

EU plans

Hydrogen is increasingly part of the EU’s plans to decarbonise transport. The bloc’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (Afir) aims to ensure the availability and usability of a dense, widespread network of alternative fuel infrastructure throughout the EU.

As it stands, the regulation would require member states to install almost 2,000 hydrogen refuelling stations by 2030.

300 – Hydrogen refuelling stations targeted by 2030

“Hydrogen is a crucial part of achieving the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ plans, further reinforced by the recent RepowerEU proposal,” says Pierre-Etienne Franc, CEO of Hy24.

“Our investment alongside pioneers in this ecosystem also supports the European Commission’s efforts to implement Afir to greatly expand the European network of hydrogen refuelling stations.”

The Hy24 hydrogen fund was launched in April 2021 with a target of €1bn from financial and industrial investors to finance clean hydrogen production, storage and distribution projects.

Strategy pivot

H2 Mobility’s initial remit was to build out refuelling infrastructure for passenger vehicles. But slow consumer adoption of fuel-cell cars led the company to reorientate its strategy to also provide refuelling facilities for buses and trucks.

Around ten of its 90 stations have been redesigned to enable bus and truck refuelling. Each station cost an average of €1.4mn to build from scratch.

Initially it was presumed in the industry that the road transport sector would be mostly electrified, but the economic case for the use of hydrogen in heavy-duty transport has been growing stronger in recent months.

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Author: Tom Young