Hydrogen Hits the Roads

Air Liquide and Honda join the Clean Energy Partnership

At a press conference on 19 May 2011, the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) announced that Air Liquide and Honda have joined the alliance. CEP, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Transportation as part of its National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP), is a partnership comprising of now 14 companies with the target of establishing hydrogen as the ‘fuel of the future’. With the contribution of its members, CEP carries out activities and develops a basis for testing hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for everyday use in transport and traffic.

Air Liquide and Honda are declared to contribute for the construction of new filling stations and expansion of the fleet of vehicles.

Air Liquide, a sustaining member to the EHA, will undertake its first major project as a CEP partner this year by constructing a 700-bar public hydrogen filling station near Dusseldorf, first of its kind in the North Rhine-Westphalia region.The filling station will demonstrate similar conditions to a conventional filling station by enabling the vehicles to refuel in three minutes. In addition to the one in Dusseldorf, the CEP has declared to open up four more stations in Germany this year.

Honda is known for delivering a number of fuel cell electric vehicles worldwide and will contribute to the partnership by sharing its FCX Clarity technology which has been on the road in Europe since 2009.

Source: CEP Press Release