Transport

California's hydrogen fuel shortage hits three-month mark, with filling stations still offline and no end in sight

The supply of gaseous hydrogen in the south of the state has seen 'major disruption' since 13 August

A screenshot of the station map on the H2FCP website, showing the Los Angeles metropolitan area, taken at about 8am California time on Monday. The red squares signify offline stations, with the green circles showing those that are open (the question mark shows a station closed for refurbishment and the orange triangle shows a site with limited supply).
A screenshot of the station map on the H2FCP website, showing the Los Angeles metropolitan area, taken at about 8am California time on Monday. The red squares signify offline stations, with the green circles showing those that are open (the question mark shows a station closed for refurbishment and the orange triangle shows a site with limited supply).Photo: Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership

It has been three months precisely since a “disruption” to the supply of gaseous hydrogen to filling stations in Southern California was first revealed — and the problem continues to persist, with no end in sight.

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Data from the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership shows that 23 of the state’s 53 filling stationd were offline at the time this article was published, including 15 out of 29 in the sprawling Greater Los Angeles area.

On 13 August, the state’s largest hydrogen fuel supplier, True Zero, wrote in a letter to customers that ten of its filling stations in the south of the state had seen their fuel supply stopped due to their supplier experiencing “a major service disruption”.

All ten still have no supply of H2, while a further two Iwatani filling stations are also reporting the same problem. Both companies are still saying they do not know when the supply of hydrogen will resume.

The remaining 11 offline hydrogen filling stations either have technical problems or fuel shortages that are not known to be related to the supply disruption in Southern California.

On Friday, hydrogen equipment supplier Plug Power blamed the general lack of available H2 in California as one of the reasons the company underperformed in the third quarter.
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Road transportHydrogen refuellingfuel-cell vehiclesCaliforniaUS
Published 13 November 2023, 16:09Updated 13 November 2023, 16:28