Air Products has announced plans to build a second liquid hydrogen production facility in California to meet increasing product demand from several customer markets, including the growing fleet of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the state.
Project development work is already under way for the facility, which is scheduled to come onstream in the first quarter of 2021.
“Current customer demand for liquid hydrogen is driving the need for this new investment as we are experiencing growth from many traditional market segments, for which a reliable source of this product is vitally important,” says Marie Ffolkes, Americas president at Air Products. “Additionally, this new capacity will be available for the steadily increasing demand from hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.”
Liquified hydrogen is delivered in trailers to customers in industries including electronics, chemical and petrochemical, metals, material handling, float glass, edible fats and oils, and utilities, as well as to hydrogen fueling stations, where it is re-gasified for fueling hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.
This is the second new liquid hydrogen plant in the U.S. that Air Products has announced in the past few months. In September, the company announced plans to build a new liquid hydrogen plant at its La Porte, Texas, facility, which will be supplied hydrogen from Air Products’ Gulf Coast pipeline network. The La Porte project is also anticipated to be onstream in 2021. Air Products has existing liquid hydrogen production assets operating in New Orleans and Sacramento; Sarnia, Ontario; and Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
“We are committed to meeting the product needs of our customer base, and as more and more hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are driven on the roads and highways of California, we will continue to evaluate additional capacity needs and make investments to meet demand,” adds Ffolkes.
