11 projects revealed to transform Paris’ airports into hydrogen hubs

11 successful winners have been chosen from 124 applications to contribute to the development of the ‘H2 Hub Airport’ project in the Île-de-France Region following a call for expressions of interest.

Airbus, Air France-KLM, Paris Region and Groupe ADP want to transform Paris airports into hydrogen hubs to support the European Commission’s goal for zero-emission aircrafts by 2035.

Three main themes had been outlined in the call for expressions of interest: storage, transportation and distribution of hydrogen, diversification of hydrogen use cases in airports and in aeronautics, and circular economy around hydrogen.

It is believed that the 11 winning projects have been identified as key building blocks for the construction and expansion of the hydrogen value chain in an airport environment and cover all the specific issues for an air ecosystem.

In the coming months, meetings will be set up to help develop a roadmap for each project, the purpose being to contribute to surging long-term solutions that are economically feasible and to be able to carry out the first on-site experiments from 2023.

The winners for the production, storage, transportation and delivery of hydrogen category includes Air Liquide’s subsidiary, Air Liquide Advanced Technologies, that will provide a refuelling truck with a large liquid hydrogen capacity.

As well as this, the Ecodrome consortium proposes to set up a multi-service supply station (hydrogen and electricity) on general aviation airfields that can be used by electric passenger aircraft and hybrid land vehicles.

The engineering group, Geostock, specialises in underground energy storage and will work on a large hydrogen storage solutions in lined mined cavities whilst Hylandair will implement its gaseous hydrogen ecosystem for use on land side and air side.

Sakowin is developing compact reactors that produce hydrogen in a decarbonised manner based on an innovative technology using methane, and will implement this into the hydrogen airports.

Californian start-up Universal Hydrogen is aiming to convert regional aircraft to hydrogen using modular liquid hydrogen capsules on board the aircraft and this technology will be utilised in the hydrogen airports.

In addition to this, several winners have been announced for diversification of use cases in airports and in aeronautics.

One such winner is the ‘Hydrogen for Airport Handling’ consortium consisting of six companies operating in the field of ground handling designing hydrogen-powered ramp vehicles (aircraft tractor, loader, baggage tractor).

The use-In H2 consortium is another winner, bringing together three public partners including the DGAC, to support hydrogen deployment projects by proposing risk analysis and recommendations on safety and security.

Plug Power will develop and market its ground support vehicles powered by fuel cells.

The last category with winners will focus on the circular economy around hydrogen.

The winners include Absolut System, a specialist in cryogenics applied to space and aeronautics that has developed solutions to optimise the quantity of hydrogen produced and stored via systems for recovering dissipated hydrogen and mobile refrigeration.

US-based Ways2H, a startup that offers a patented solution for the local production of hydrogen from the reprocessing of waste, will build a facility that uses its circular economy technology to convert waste into renewable hydrogen to fuel airport vehicles and other applications.

Ways2H, the hydrogen economy and working in a male dominated industry… CTO Angelica Gyllén reveals all

In the current hydrogen climate, waste-to-hydrogen technology is revolutionising not only the production of hydrogen but also reducing pollution around the world. By extracting various waste products, such as plastics, sewage and municipal solid waste, polluters in contemporary society now have a new purpose.

One such company that is transforming this innovate waste-to-hydrogen market is Ways2H, a Californian company with ongoing projects and developments across the world. Most recently, in March, Ways2H contributed to a new sewage-to-hydrogen plant that was built in collaboration with Japan Blue Energy Co. at the Sunamachi Water Reclamation Centre in Tokyo.

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