Two in five of Germany’s hydrogen refuelling stations will have closed by the end of this year
Source：hydrogeninsight
Earlier this year, there were 79 hydrogen refuelling stations (HRSs) in operation in Germany. By the end of this year, that number will have fallen to 48 — a reduction of just under 40%.
This is because the country’s largest HRS operator, H2 Mobility, has been carrying out its programme of closing HRSs that had been designed to cater primarily for fuel-cell cars (which require hydrogen dispensed at a pressure of 700 bar).
It closed 22 such facilities in the summer, and will shutter a further 14 by the end of the year — a total of 36.
Five new HRSs have been opened in Germany over the course of 2025, creating a net loss of 31 for the year.
H2 Mobility says that drivers will be able to refuel at the 14 HRSs until 31 December, after which they will be closed and dismantled.
“The stations that marked the beginning of hydrogen mobility more than ten years ago can no longer be adapted to today’s changing technical standards and growing requirements,” said the company’s managing director, Martin Jüngel.
“They have limited storage capacity and, from today’s perspective, insufficient performance for commercial vehicle operations. These stations were originally built for a passenger car market that has not developed as expected in recent years.
“In parallel, we are investing in more powerful and future-oriented stations, a new generation of hydrogen refuelling stations. They feature significantly higher performance and resilience, enabling refuelling of buses and trucks with 350-bar tank systems in less than 15 minutes.”
The 14 stations to close at the end of the year are in Berlin-Rothenbachstraße, Biebelried, Braunschweig, Duisburg, Essen, Hasbergen, Ingolstadt, Kirchheim, Laatzen, Limburg, Lohfelden, Metzingen, Rheda-Wiedenbrück and Wendlingen.
And, in particular, the closure of the only public HRS in Duisburg — a major industrial city — will cause immediate problems for both fuel-cell car drivers and the local fleet of H2-powered garbage trucks.
The city of Duisburg currently operates seven hydrogen-powered refuse trucks that each refuel at H2 Mobility’s local HRS two to three times a week. While there is a mobile 350-bar H2 refuelling station in Duisburg for the city’s fleet of H2 buses, it is not compatible with the 700-bar refuse trucks.
They will now each have to be driven 30-40km to HRSs in Düsseldorf or Herten to be refuelled several times a week — something that Thomas Patermann, director of the city’s municipal services provider, WBD, has described as “extremely annoying”.
A spokesperson for WBD told the Bild newspaper that it had no plans to stop using its H2 garbage trucks.
“Even though the current hydrogen supply situation presents a challenge and complicates practical operation, we have two alternative hydrogen filling stations available in neighbouring cities that we can use,” he said.
There is a similar situation in the city of Bielefeld, where the municipal hydrogen refuse trucks currently have to be driven 40km to refuel at Rheda-Wiedenbrück, one of the HRSs that is now being closed. The second nearest HRS to the city, in Hasbergen, is also being closed, meaning that unless special arrangements are made, the trucks would have to be driven to Münster to refuel — a thoroughly impractical round-trip of about 200km.