√New hydrogen refuelling station to open in Brisbane

A new hydrogen refilling station is coming to Brisbane, as part of an upcoming hydrogen ‘superhighway’ along Australia’s east coast.

A new hydrogen refilling station will open in Brisbane’s north east later this year, as the first in a line of similar stations along Australia’s eastern coastline.

Gas and engineering company BOC has partnered with BP to open a hydrogen station at the BP Truckstop service station in Lytton, in Brisbane’s north east, later this year.

The hydrogen station will be supplied by BOC’s Bulwer Island production facility on the opposite bank of the Brisbane River, with a 220kW electrolyser (the machine that produces hydrogen) powered by solar energy.

The Queensland Government’s fleet of five Hyundai Nexo fuel-cell SUVs will be the first cars to benefit from the new station – with access to expand to regular drivers with BP Plus fuel cards “in future”.

The 220kW electrolyser powering the site is set to produce 50kg of hydrogen per day – enough to fill about eight Hyundai Nexos, each in under five minutes.

BOC first announced plans to build a new hydrogen station powered by its Bulwer Island production site in 2019 – though the latest announcement confirms where it will be located.

The new hydrogen station in Brisbane will form part of a new hydrogen ‘superhighway’ along Australia’s east coast, passing through Melbourne, Albury-Wodonga, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Townsville, Cairns and other key towns along the way.

Key roads covered by the new hydrogen refuelling network are slated to include (but not limited to) the Bruce Highway in Queensland, Newell Highway in NSW, and Hume Highway across NSW and Victoria.

The new BOC station in Brisbane joins two further publicly-available hydrogen refuelling stations in Australia: one in Canberra run by ActewAGL, and another operated by Toyota at its former factory in Altona, Victoria (above).

Hyundai Australia operates a refuelling station at its headquarters in Sydney (below), however this isn’t open to the public.

The BOC/BP site is one of six refuelling stations under construction in Queensland – joining another in Victoria, and further sites planned for other states.

Only two hydrogen fuel-cell cars are on sale in Australia, the Hyundai Nexo SUV and Toyota Mirai sedan. Both are sold only in limited numbers to specific fleet and government customers.

“BOC is committed to supporting the development of hydrogen as a zero emissions fuel and decarbonising the transport sector in Australia,” said John Evans, Managing Director of BOC South Pacific.

“Working closely with our partner bp we will demonstrate how state-of-the-art hydrogen refuelling stations can be safely integrated into the existing service station network, paving the way for more infrastructure to facilitate hydrogen trucks and buses.”

Frédéric Baudry, president of BP Australia and SVP fuels & low carbon solutions in Asia Pacific, said “BP is proud to be partnering with BOC and the Queensland Government in the development of Australia’s first green hydrogen refueller on an existing service station.

“Hydrogen will play an important part in the future energy and mobility mix, and partnerships – such as this one between Government, BOC and bp – will be essential in decarbonising industry and transport.”

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