Colorado State University and New Day Hydrogen were awarded nearly $9 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build three public hydrogen fueling stations that could be up and running in two to three years.
The goal, CSU research associate Andrew Zdanowicz said, is to provide owners of medium-duty vehicles like box trucks and delivery vans with a place to refuel in an effort to get them to add clean-energy hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles to their fleets.
The fueling stations, the first of their kind in Colorado, will be built on CSU campuses in Fort Collins, Denver and Pueblo — providing reasonable coverage along the Interstate 25 corridor. The hydrogen will be produced on-site employing the same electrolysis process — using high-voltage electricity to split liquid water molecules into streams of high-purity hydrogen and oxygen — that CSU has been using in other research at its Powerhouse campus in Fort Collins, Zdanowicz said.
The grant money will be used to design and build the public fueling stations, he said, and pay for their operation until there are enough hydrogen vehicles paying to fill up to cover the operating costs.