Overview
The Directive 2014/94/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure defines a common framework of measures for the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure in the European Union in order to minimise dependence on oil and to mitigate the environmental impact of transport. It sets out minimum requirements for the building-up of alternative fuels infrastructure, including hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS) for hydrogen-fuelled fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV). The current lack of refuelling infrastructure and the scarcity of FCEV are the key barriers to development of the hydrogen market. Interventions for stimulating implementation of HRS infrastructure and hydrogen market pull are therefore necessary.
The Action’s overall objective is to foster FCEV use across Europe, significantly contributing to the European alternative fuels implementation strategy. The Action, including a study and real-life pilot deployments at three locations (Pärnu Estonia, Riga Latvia and Arnhem in the Netherlands), is implemented along the North Sea - Baltic Core Network Corridor. To deliver on the overall objective of the Action, there are two specific objectives, which will be met by carrying out five defined activities within the Action.
The first specific objective is to understand all necessary technical, economic and customer-related requirements for the hydrogen value chain, starting from its local production and ending at its delivery in HRS, to be commercially viable and adopted at large scale by a sustainable market for both urban and long-distance use. This objective will be met through studies (activities 1 and 3) to map the locally available pathways for hydrogen production from renewable energy sources and establish the provision of hydrogen for real life trials. It will mobilise local and regional stakeholders to drive the business case and ensure a growing demand for hydrogen fuel by engaging organisations and individuals to become customers. It includes the optimisation of business strategy for future investments and scale-up across Europe.
The second specific objective is to operate and monitor the use of hydrogen infrastructure so as to interact and inform the studies. This objective will be met by conducting a real-life trial (activity 2) with three publicly accessible HRS to be procured and built in Arnhem, Pärnu and Riga. The operational use of the HRS is ensured through public hydrogen buses (urban use) to be procured and operated as well, and cars from identified fleet owners (both urban and long-distance use), therefore securing the collection and analysis of meaningful operational data to feed the studies.
Taking into account the previous hydrogen TEN-T Actions HIT (2011-EU-92130-S) and HIT-2-Corridors (2013-EU-92077-S) and in cooperation with the parallel starting hydrogen TEN-T Action COHRS (2014-EU-TM-0318-S) and Easy-HyMob (2014-FR-TA-0519-S), all the project results will be disseminated widely at local, national and European levels of decision and policy makers (activity 5). It will provide Member States, other cities and regions with lessons learned on how to establish hydrogen nodes along the core network corridors with integrated planning of regionally produced sustainable hydrogen, roll-out of the refuelling infrastructure and mobilising local and regional demand for zero emission FCEV. To ensure the Action is delivered on time and within budget, Project Management has been separated out as a distinct activity (activity 4).