The geographic location of the new hydrogen refuelling station is ideal, as it is close to the urban center of Tours (300.000 inhabitants) and is part of a business park, enabling strong potential for new private, public and industrial FCEVs users. It is located 1 km away from the motorway A10, which is a Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) corridor, connecting Paris to Bordeaux, and more generally, Benelux to Spain and Portugal. It perfectly complements the existing network of hydrogen refuelling stations developed within the FCH JU project H2ME, bridging the gap between Nantes, Paris and Lyon. 

The size and diversity of the existing fleet of vehicles guarantees a successful demonstration and provides results for a diversity of use cases. The fleet already comprises 10 hydrogen utility vehicles at 350 bar, passenger cars at 700 bar and 1 garbage truck at 700 bar. During COSMHYC DEMO, project dedicated activities aim at increasing this exiting fuel cell vehicle fleet with additional utility vehicles, passenger cars, busses and forklifts.

To begin with, a regional supplier will provide green hydrogen to the refuelling station by trailer. Later, green hydrogen will be produced on-site through electrolysis. This is planned as a part of CCTVI’s HySOPARC project. In addition, a filling centre will be installed for filling trailers and distributing hydrogen to other hydrogen refuelling stations or local industrial clients. This will increase the utilisation rate of the innovative compressors, allowing an optimal testing framework.