Despite a challenging year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 saw a record-breaking year for the hydrogen mobility market with the opening of 107 new hydrogen stations.
That’s according to new information released from H2stations.org that states 2020’s developments took the worldwide hydrogen station total to 553 by the end of last year.
Detailing 2020’s station developments, the information service identified 29 new hydrogen stations in Europe, 72 in Asia and 6 in North America.
Four countries showed a particular dynamic expansion with Japan opening 28 stations, Korea opening 26, China opening 18 and Germany flying the flag for Europe with 14 new facilities.
Europe
Europe had 200 hydrogen stations at the end of the last year, 100 of which are in Germany.
France is second in Europe with 34 operating stations, and with 38 planned hydrogen stations it currently shows the strongest growth in Europe.
Read more: Atawey planning to deploy 150 stations in the next five years
A significantly increasing number is also projected in the Netherlands, where the number of planned stations has increased to 23.
In line with plans, the ninth refuelling station was recently opened in Switzerland.
Asia
At the end of 2020, there were 275 hydrogen stations in Asia, 142 of them in Japan, and 60 in Korea.
The 69 Chinese hydrogen stations in the H2stations.org database are used almost exclusively for the refuelling of buses or truck fleets.
North America
North America currently boasts 75 operational hydrogen refuelling stations, 49 of which are located in California.
Four new hydrogen stations were added to the Californian offering last year.