Hydrogen Competence Center
Hydrogen viewed as fuel of the future
Harald Wolf, Mayor and Berlin Senator for Economic, Labour, and Women's Affairs, officially opened Berlin's first hydrogen filling station at the BVG's Usedomer Straße Bus Depot on 23 October 2002.
With about one million euros of subsidies from the EU, the filling station is operated by the BVG, TotalFinaElf, Linde, MAN, and Opel. The project is coordinated by the Berlin Senate Office for Economic, Labour, and Women's Affairs. The Hydrogen Competence Centre, at which the BVG and the TotalFinaElf-Group want to research the use of hydrogen fuel, was started at the same time.
The filling station offers both liquid and gaseous hydrogen, making it the ideal place for all types of hydrogen-driven vehicles in the future. The CEO of TotalFinaElf Deutschland GmbH, Horst Schröter, described the importance of hydrogen for TotalFinaElf as Europe's leading mineral oil group as follows: "Producing and selling fuel is our business, so researching future fuel sources is our job".
The major advantage of hydrogen is that only water is released instead of exhaust gas when energy is recovered from it. Hydrogen also stores energy very well.