With a new annual call for funding support for the construction of hydrogen filling stations, Enova SF hopes to facilitate faster growth in the use of hydrogen vehicles in Norway.
Owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Enova SF is funding agency charged with supporting the development of energy and climate technology. The agency has added a new annual funding call for the hydrogen sector and aims to support up to three hydrogen refuelling stations per annum.
There must be an ever-increasing distance between fossil fuelled vehicles on the road and the low-emission society. When hydrogen vehicles become competitive, hydrogen can be an important contributor in making the transport sector emissions free. Therefore, we want projects that can help reduce costs and build experience now. In March, we made it possible for the professional market to get support for the purchase of hydrogen vehicles, and the support for filling stations is well suited to this. We want to contribute to a customised and targeted infrastructure development, and will continue to monitor developments in the supply of vehicles carefully, said Nils Kristian Nakstad, Managing Director of Enova SF, the Norwegian government-owned funding agency.
Hydrogen stations that have a certain customer base will be given priority in the funding allocation process.
This improves the profitability of the project and enables us to get usage experience as early as possible. Special stations that attach larger vehicle fleets in commercial and public transport can provide useful operating experience quickly, explained Nakstad.
Nakstad believes that this will also give other actors a better basis for assessing hydrogen vehicles.
Such projects could show both private and business professionals that hydrogen is a real alternative. In this way, the support offer facilitates a faster growth in the hydrogen market as soon as access to hydrogen cars increases, said Nakstad.
The new funding complements the existing range of support that Enova has for using hydrogen in transport, and Nakstad both hopes and believes that Enova will help realise a number of successful hydrogen projects in the coming years.
We keep the other support offers we already have. Innovative hydrogen projects are still welcome to apply for our technology programmes. Public and private players seeking support for hydrogen vehicles can also get support to build filling stations at the same time. In addition, we can support municipalities and county administrations that wish to build hydrogen stations to electrify public transport services, said Nakstad.
Enova has set September 29 as the application deadline for this year’s call for applications, with a target of an allocation decision in November. The hydrogen refuelling stations that receive support in this round must be operational by September 2019.
