Hydrogen price
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Hydrogen gas station price
At this moment in time, the first cars are developed that can run purely on hydrogen and we do get asked what the price of this is. The main advantage of this fuel is that you drive very environmentally friendly, but you also have a huge driving radius. A full tank of hydrogen costs about 3 minutes to fill up. After this you can drive up to 800 kilometers! It is a project that undergoes heavy developments still, but the price will be somewhere around 10 euro per kilogram. This will exclude VAT, but most likely will not be subject to extra costs. Per kilometer, a driver will spend about €0,10. This seems a lot, but you will also lose costs in taxes. If you compare this to the price of petrol, which costs about €0,20 per kilometer, you save about half. Electric cars will still be cheaper at about 8 to 10 cents per kilometer. Though this also has to do with the fact that people charge their cars at home through solar panels and such. Hydrogen, though, is a lot cleaner and we expect that there will be subsidies in the future that you can request, or that you get a lower insurance premium for these cars. The first hydrogen gas stations should open up at the end of 2023.
How is the price of hydrogen determined?
Currently it is not sure how the price of hydrogen will be determined. There are dozens of hydrogen gas stations in development, but there are not many people that own a car that can use this fuel. Because it is a cleaner fuel, it will most likely always cost less than petrol cars. It is also very possible that the local government or bodies like the European Union will start subsidizing these cars. They would do this to create a more desired transition to these vehicles. We saw this when the electric cars started coming up, but hydrogen is currently still very young. The gas stations for hydrogen are very valuable, but there have been some built with subsidies coming from the government. The costs were about 2.5 million and the government paid around 1 million of this. If the companies themselves had to pay for everything, the price of hydrogen would obviously increase. But if governments can subsidize this, it will stay at an affordable price point. The more demand there will be for hydrogen, the cheaper it will be. So there is not a true prediction to be made.
What factors influence the price of hydrogen?
There are many different factors that influence the price for gassing up on hydrogen. There are only few cars available that can use this fuel. There are also not many gas stations operational and a lot of them are in development. Currently, the few existing ones have the power to control the pricing, which could mean higher prices in the future. But when more gas stations pop up, and we don’t know when yet, this could mean a serious drop in price. It is not fully clear what the deal will be with taxes and subsidies. Yearly it could be a lot cheaper, because you drive more environmentally friendly. This happened with electric driving and we expect this for hydrogen cars.
The future of hydrogen and the price for it
For years we have been building the hydrogen supply chain. And the price for hydrogen in your car will most likely be very attractive. This fuel is cleaner than electricity and we expect that the fuel will therefore be a lot cheaper. Currently, the price is relatively high, because not a lot of gas stations can give it to their customers. When there is few to no competition, the prices will always rise and be high. When more gas stations pop up, you will see the market start to work and the price will lower. At Rawmaterialprices.com we keep a close watch on the developments!
Where in the Netherlands can you gas up on hydrogen?
Currently there are only 3 places in the Netherlands that you can put hydrogen in your car affordably. In Helmond you can request a badge at “Waterstofnet”, so that you can start filling up on this fuel. In Arnhem at Hygear you have the same possibility. The last one is situated in Rhoon, named Air Liquide. In the regions Brabant, South Holland, Groningen and Friesland they are starting to develop multiple of these gas stations. Around Amsterdam and perhaps inside of it, there will also be hydrogen gas stations. We do not know exactly how these projects are coming along. When these stations should have been built, corona hit hard. We expect that reality is coming back and it will slowly get back on track. Because a couple of companies decide to build in multiple regions, it might go faster than you think. We hope to have more news about this in 2023. Building a gas station that only supplies hydrogen is a very costly thing. Averagely, companies need to have at least 2.5 million to invest, before one is operational. And that excludes costs for personnel or maintenance. If the government starts subsidizing these projects, it could go a lot faster. But it is a huge amount of money and seeing the realities of the pandemic, companies will think twice before dipping their toes in the water.
Why switching to hydrogen is important and cheap
If you gas up on hydrogen, the price is often a lot better than petrol. Hydrogen is a lot cheaper, but you also don’t pay per liter but per kilogram. Per kilo, you can drive around 100 kilometers and sometimes more.
Just like petrol, it takes about 3 minutes before you filled up your tank. It is a much cleaner fuel, which means you won’t have to pay as much taxes. And in the future, it could be that the government will subsidize the purchase of a hydrogen car. We saw this with electric cars as well.
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