MAXIMATOR HYDROGEN: Going the Extra Mile to Grow Footprint

In the face of an abundance of obvious benefits linked to hydrogen fuel cell technology, car manufacturers have for years been engaged in a collective bid to crack the formula for successfully using the most abundant resource in the universe to power their vehicles. Hydrogen cars produce zero harmful emissions on the road, and refilling is very similar to filling up with petrol or diesel and is also almost as quick, with a brim-full tank available in around five minutes.

Historically, the lack of existing infrastructure has been cited as the biggest obstacle to a more widespread take-up, amplified as EV charging points have incessantly sprung up and the convenience of using hydrogen’s main competitor has in turn swelled and taken electric cars fully into the mainstream. With parent company Maximator GmbH, the world market leader in high-pressure technology, through abundant innovation and expertise, Maximator Hydrogen is poised to intervene, MD Mathias Kurras told Energy Focus earlier this year.

“We build hydrogen filling stations with passion and thus drive the future,” he outlines. “Our mission is to make hydrogen usable on a large scale and help infrastructure to become climate neutral.” Patience is key, however, Kurras added – this is a marathon, after all, not a sprint. “We are fuelling the future; we know that in the end there will be hydrogen.”

GROWING NETWORK

“We have more than 130 years of experience behind our high solution competence in the field of machine and component construction,” detailed the man at the helm of this industry leader at the vanguard of a crucial movement. “The combination of this tradition, with a high degree of vertical integration and sustainable innovations, allows us to develop the most suitable and efficient solutions with, and for, our customers, for the entire value chain of hydrogen technologies.”

The ubiquity of hydrogen refuelling stations worldwide has burgeoned exponentially over the last decade. At last count in 2021 the total stood at 685, an almost fourfold increase during the period with 142 hydrogen refuelling stations being placed into operation worldwide last year alone – again more than ever before, shattering the previous record number lodged in 2020. In a continuation of the trend, concrete plans at the beginning of 2022 indicated that a further 252 refuelling station locations would be completed by the close of the year. 

Clearly then, the crucial and potentially era-defining takeaway is that the infrastructure for fuel cell cars is becoming more developed, and more widespread. Advancements in Spain and New Zealand are noteworthy, as both registered numerous new definite placement plans for the first time. Hungary and Slovenia were both new entrants, each with a hydrogen filling station; in total hydrogen is now currently available for purchase in 33 nations.

Maximator Hydrogen’s nascent Germany leads the way in Europe, already boasting more than 100 stations and set to triple this count by 2030 as it seeks to wean lorries and buses off fossil fuels and decarbonise its transport network. A standalone entity since 2019, Maximator Hydrogen’s work began in earnest at the turn of 2022, with the purchase of some 400 traditional fuel stations in Germany to be converted into hydrogen sites.

“Unbundling the hydrogen segment from the Maximator Group allows us to plunge our full focus into this business and its many prospects, pursuing the dynamic growth in this sector,” Kurras detailed. “As well as the many years of expertise in the development and production of compression technologies, and key technologies from Maximator Advanced Technology, we also benefit from the know-how of around 700 hydrogen-relevant patents.

“We truly envisage the hydrogen compression market as being huge in the near future. Overall, technology-wise we are the market leader worldwide, and in terms of the number of new hydrogen stations brought into service over recent years, we are leading the way in Europe.” Kurras went on to set forth the powerful partnerships Maximator Hydrogen is forging further afield, which include some giants of the industry.

US PROGRESS

“A lot of neighbouring countries are now on our map,” he explained, “having delivered bus stations to Vienna and the Netherlands, and prototype refuelling stations to Sweden. We are looking now to step into the markets in Australia and the Middle East, while reinforcing an incredibly strong position in North America.

“We are delivering a lot of stations to Shell into the USA, and by the end of this year we will have provided up to 50 in California,” Kurras informs, and both the timing and placement is impeccable; of the 86 petrol stations in North America, 60 reside in California, with 11 new fuelling stations opening in the area in 2021. “In North America right now, we have one big customer as opposed to Europe where we have a lot of different clients,” Kurras says. “Besides this, in North America, we are entering a market where there are already a lot of cars, and therefore by this utilisation, rates of the stations are much higher.

“Right now, our ambitions are to make a successful market entry, with stations for passenger cars in California, and after that we are looking forward to also deploying very fast stations for heavy duty transport.” This does not come without its own series of challenges, Kurras clarifies, obstacles which are all of course greatly diminished through Maximator Hydrogen’s valuable affiliation with the larger group, Kurras qualifies.

“We receive a lot of input,” he states. “In all international markets where the group already has a viable entity, whereby we can use this to determine feasibility and so enter the market ourselves. This in turn helps massively to keep the costs of our continuing internationalisation relatively low.” As a fast and efficient partner for the planning, construction, and operation of hydrogen infrastructure for road, rail and ship traffic, Maximator Hydrogen offers highly reliable and modern hydrogen filling stations from a single source.

As a number of mines begin to convert their huge trucks to using hydrogen, the off-highway section of the business is becoming another priority area for Maximator Hydrogen, Kurras furthers. “Besides the activities we are undertaking towards a bigger on-road station, this is the hottest topic within our company, which means that off-highway business is definitely a topic with a lot of focus.

“Our top priority is to actively shape the mobility revolution by providing the necessary infrastructure,” Kurras summarises. “All of it will be led by our latest and most highly efficient compressor generation, MAX Compression 2.0, which works with the same installation space and optimised energy requirements as its predecessor, but with up to five times the performance, this will enable us to be competitive in all markets, especially those with highly utilised stations.”