A literature review on hydrogen refuelling stations and infrastructure. Current status and future prospects

During the last years, hydrogen based transportation presented a significant growth consisting of the commercialisation of fuel cell electric vehicles and the development on new infrastructure schemes. This study demonstrates the state-of-the art and the future potential of the emerging hydrogen-based market in road transportation. To this end, a detailed analysis of the current technologies associated with hydrogen refuelling stations including stations' components and categories is presented. Subsequently, future forecasts concerning the development of hydrogen infrastructure along with its corresponding financial evaluation is documented through a thorough literature review. All the referred sources were discussed and compared, concluding to a general outcome showing the prospects of hydrogen in the transportation sector. Acknowledging the above, this review identified a growing trend in the expansion of hydrogen infrastructure, albeit at this time is still at an initial stage of development, mostly due to the low H₂ fuel demand for transportation. However, based on the acquired information and the analysis of the presented data, an increase of the H₂ fuel demand in the future will require high investments in the infrastructure sector, which may exceed several billion EUR through the construction of an adequate number of hydrogen refuelling stations. In this regard, the presented studies indicated a number of hydrogen refuelling stations for the next decades based on different scenarios of the future alternative vehicles mix, ranging from several thousands to hundreds of thousands. Hence, it is concluded that there is a two-way relationship between hydrogen infrastructure and H₂ based vehicles. Investments in hydrogen refuelling stations are profitable if the fuel cell vehicles number will grow, and on the other hand, fuel cell vehicles market will be hindered if there is no adequate hydrogen infrastructure development.