Fuel cell vehicles set to receive £50 million boost

A new Euro project called the Hydrogen Mobility Europe (H2ME) scheme, is set to be given a €68 million boost - roughly £50 million.

The project is aiming to encourage the development and purchase of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and an expansion in refuelling infrastructure across the continent.

So far £49.9 million has already been invested in the initiative. H2ME is the largest European scheme of this type to be created and is based around an alliance of four crucial hydrogen mobility initiatives.

The H2 Mobility Deutschland, Mobilité Hydrogène France and Scandinavian Hydrogen Highway Partnership join UK H2 Mobility to bring together vehicle manufacturers, hydrogen refuelling station providers and government representatives. All of these components will develop strategies to make hydrogen-fuelled transport increasingly  accessible to each region.

The scheme aims deploy 200 FCEV’s, 125 fuel cell range extended electric vans and 29 new refuelling stations in ten countries by 2019. The selected countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. The scheme also parallels initiatives set out for the roll-out of a large scale hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. Manufacturers such as Damler, Nissan, Hyundai and Honda are also involved with the initiative.

The funding will be partially subsidised by The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) partnership, which will be providing around €32.

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