Iwatani will have a hydrogen filling station in the inner city of Tokyo Metropolis in collaboration with the Toyota group. The construction is going to start in September of this year and is scheduled to be completed in March 2015. To construct the station, Iwatani will utilize the subsidy granted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s second public offering in 2014. A subsidy of 280 million yen will be funded as a part of the estimated total cost of the construction which amounts to 400 to 500 million yen.

The “Tokyo Hydrogen Station” (tentative naming) to be constructed is specific as an offsite system using a liquefied hydrogen storage tank with a supply capacity of 340Nm3/h which enables filling of six fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) per hour at a pressure of 70MPa.

Such main facilities as liquefied hydrogen storage tank, hydrogen compressor or dispenser will be installed on the site having an area of 1097 square meter. As for the hydrogen compressor, the new station will employ Linde’s ionic compressor.

For the hydrogen station which is an infrastructure aimed for the diffusion of FCV, preliminary developments have already been started in four major urban conurbations of Tokyo, Nagoya, Kansai and Fukuoka prior to the expected launch of FCV for general sales in 2015.

The facilities granted for the subsidy to fund the construction exist at about 40 locations in the four major urban conurbations, but most worried was that there were only a few installations in the central part of Tokyo where the largest demand could be expected for FCV.

The reason is that there are a few candidate sites for stations due to the high cost of land. However, automobile manufacturers are deeply concerned about the situation fearing the possible impairing of FCV users’ convenience. At this time Toyota started to engage in installing the station taking advantage of the land owned by the Toyota group. By the way, it is said to be the first case that the planned construction of a stationary station in the central part of Tokyo has been announced to the public.　 In the station to be constructed Iwatani is planning to install also a showroom to exhibit the latest technologies as to hydrogen and fuel cell.