The president of the Council of la Manche, one of the French “départements” or provinces in Northern France,  Jean-François Le Grand,  on January 26, 2015, opening the first hydrogen station in the region in Saint-Lô, indicated that “..the issue of tomorrow will be energy storage, therefore hydrogen will be essential for the take off of an energy transition in La Manche”.  La Manche has a clear ambition to become a demonstration site for energy storage solutions to manage the large flows of energy of its nuclear (Flamanville) and renewable (wind) power stations through intelligent networks in which hydrogen solutions will be play a key role. The first station built by Air Liquide will serve a fleet of five Renault Doblo cars powered by Symbio Fuel Cells owned and operated by the Council. La Manche joined HyER last December.