“Shinko Engineering and Maintenance which is engaged in plant engineering for the Kobe Steel Group started its engineering business for hydrogen stations in 2012. Kunihiko Shimizu, deputy division manager of Plant Business Division said, “Since the beginning of this year we have received several inquiries for engineering in the field with the background of the commercializing trend of H2 filling stations.”

The reason of starting the H2 station business is that the recent trend of movements is going toward the government plan aiming for the construction of a hundred H2 stations by 2015, and that the company has found high possibilities of utilizing its engineering technologies fostered in such fields as petrochemical, air separation, LNG, satellite and CNG station business.

In the H2 station business, Shinko EN & M deals with designing, development and construction in a consistent way of various equipment including Kobe Steel’s high pressure H2 compressor, diffusion-bonded compact heat exchanger, H2 generation/purification system and the electrolytic H2 generator by Kobelco Eco-Solutions which is also the one of Kobe Steel Group.

There is another feature that they can assure and set the control values required for H2 filling operation by means of simulating the hydrogen property during the H2 filling of the station and pressure/flow-rate/temperature changes of FCV tank.

By planning construction of filling stations based on such data, the company is confident to attain downsizing and cost reduction of supply equipment such as compressor, pressure accumulator, freezer, piping and valve. In addition the company will be able to determine the number of FCV for continuous filling.

According to Simizu, the company plans to construct 20 stations each in 2013 and 2014, and 40 in 2015, but aims to receive orders for 40 stations equivalent to half of the above by making the most of the simulation technology of a company’s big advantage and the abundant lineup of the relative equipment of the Kobe Steel group.

Shinko EN & M also focuses its effort on the medium-sized LNG satellite business. The plant engineering sales department of the same division started to expand sales on a full-fledged scale from October 2011 of the medium-sized LNG satellite facilities with a storing capacity of 300 to 750 kilo liter. Since the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster, there has been an enhanced trend of conversion to LNG due to reviewing of energy supply.”