Since hydrogen can be a trump card for Japan’s future energy security and measures against global warming, hydrogen as a transportation fuel has also been positioned as an important item in energy policy in Japan. For about twenty years since the limited sale of fuel cell vehicles started in 2002, Japan has been consistently promoting the technical and social demonstration as well as commercialization of hydrogen stations through the joint efforts of the public and private sectors. During this period, there was a stage when the construction of hydrogen stations has stagnated. However, after the establishment of Japan H2 Mobility, an industry collaborative where the government and the industry strengthened their commitment, the number of hydrogen stations started to rise again, and financial investors and local small and medium-sized enterprises have also been entering the hydrogen station business. With the aim of making the hydrogen station business self-sustaining in the latter half of the 2020s, it will be indispensable to maintain the management that balances competition and cooperation within the industry while working together as a public and private sector.

In Japan, the fuel cell passenger vehicle (FCEV) were launched to the market at the early stage and deployed hydrogen refueling station to promote hydrogen utilization in the personal transport sector. On the other hand, major overseas countries are promoting in the industries and public sector such as commercial vehicles, material handlings and railways based on their own hydrogen energy strategy centered on the versatility of fuel cell transport applications. This article introduces the spread of global FCEVs and hydrogen infrastructure, trends in fuel cell transport applications that are accelerating to multiple uses, and the attracting approaches of hydrogen use in United States, Europe and China.

The new fuel cell train “Series FV-E991” is under development by JR East, and equipped with a hybrid system using the hydrogen fuel cell and storage battery as power sources. It is going to be the world’s first fuel cell train using 70MPa high-pressure hydrogen enabling longer distance running which is not possible with 35MPa hydrogen.

We plan to start demonstration tests of Series FV-E991 on commercial lines from 2021FY. In these tests, we will collect data toward practical use, such as the optimization of the fuel cell technology and the investigation of the technical development items related to ground facilities.

We aim at the early commercialization of high-performance and safe fuel cell train that meets the stringent standards of Japan’s railways which are principally operated in densely populated areas.

Japan has approximately 130 commercial hydrogen refueling stations currently, and the most of them boost the pressure of hydrogen gas using a compressor. On the other hand, there is the hydrogen cryopump system which was designed in Europe and the number of the stations using that system is also increasing in the United States. The cryopump system has two abilities compared to a compressor. Firstly, the cryopump can make a lot of high pressured gas at 80 (kg/h) (900 (m³/h)), and this amount is three times more than the compressor at the same required power. Due to this ability, the cryopump system is good for fueling the FC buses and it can fill up 5 buses per hour. Moreover, the cold gas from the tank will be used as cooling the pressured gas so that the cooling unit can work more efficiently.

Panasonic has built a hydrogen station for forklifts at its main home appliance factory in Kusatsu. In this hydrogen station, hydrogen produced from renewable energy and hydrogen produced by gas reforming can be mixed to resolve the instability of renewable energy due to the weather. Two forklifts are used for production activities such as shipment of ENE-FARM.