Public Works Department

Fleet and Building Maintenance Division
  

Hydrogen Fueling Station

145 W. Verdugo Avenue

This new state-of-the-art fast fill hydrogen fueling station is one more milestone in the City’s plan to improve the region’s air quality.  The opening of this station marks the City of Burbank’s participation in a five year hydrogen fuel infrastructure and fleet vehicle demonstration project sponsored by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). 

Burbank is one of five Southland cities partnering with AQMD to demonstrate five hydrogen fueling stations and a total of 30 hybrid Priuses with internal combustion engines that have been modified to burn gaseous hydrogen.  The other cities include Ontario, Riverside, Santa Ana and Santa Monica.

“The opening of this hydrogen station is an important step taken to achieve our goal of cleaner air in our basin,” said Jef Vander Borght, Mayor of Burbank.  “We look forward to the day stations like this one become common place, not only in Burbank but also throughout California.

Each city and AQMD will operate five hydrogen-fueled Priuses for five years.  Although a small number of hydrogen stations now operate across the country, primarily to refuel fuel cell vehicles, the five in Southern California are the first in the nation based at cities and focused on fueling internal combustion vehicle fleets, AQMD officials said.  The stations also will be able to refuel fuel cell vehicles.

The hydrogen-fueled, internal combustion engine vehicles are considered a near-term bridge to longer-term future technologies including fuel cell vehicles, which emit only water vapor.  Near-zero emission vehicles including those powered by fuel cells are considered a key strategy to clean up smog in Southern California, which has some of the most severely polluted air in the nation.

The five cities program is aimed at stimulating demand for hydrogen fueling, accelerating the expansion of the region’s hydrogen fueling network, and educating the public on hydrogen-fueled vehicles.  City of Burbank officials plan to use the five Priuses in everyday city fleet driving as well as showcase them to community groups, neighborhood associations and schools.

The total cost for the project is more than $7 million, including:

  • A contract for $2.16 million awarded by AQMD to Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc. of Irvine to design, convert, test, certify and maintain the hydrogen Priuses;

  • Contracts for $3.9 million awarded by AQMD to Air Products and Chemicals Inc., headquartered in Allentown, Penn., to install and demonstrate hydrogen fueling stations at the five cities;

  •  Purchase of 30 Priuses, paid for by individual cities and AQMD, for $750,000; and

  •  Preparation of cities’ fueling sites, paid for by cities and estimated at a total of approximately $500,000.

Each hydrogen-fueled Prius has a compressed gas fuel cylinder that holds up to 1.6 kilograms of hydrogen, giving the vehicles a range of up to 80 miles per fill.  (One kilogram of hydrogen is roughly equivalent to the energy content of one gallon of gasoline.)

The Priuses meet the state of California’s strict Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle standard for smog-forming nitrogen oxides, and unlike their gasoline-fueled counterparts, they have no carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide or hydrocarbon emissions.

 

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