FLEETDRIVE
Sustainably produced hydrogen is the core element to fuel vehicles like the Toyota Mirai FCEV , an advanced fuel cell electric vehicle that produces no CO2 emissions , requires no battery recharging and has a range of 650km .
The Toyota Mirai has been sold in markets in Japan and US for the past seven years but the greatest challenge to the broad-scale introduction of fuel cell electric vehicles in Australia has been a lack of refuelling infrastructure and the Toyota Hydrogen Centre is an important step in addressing this challenge .
Together with the hydrogen production , storage and refuelling facility , the Toyota Hydrogen Centre also incorporates an Education Centre to provide information on how hydrogen fuel cells work and
the benefits to society , helping to dispel any myths around the safety and use of hydrogen as a fuel .
Hydrogen is produced on site by a 200kW electrolyser that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen components and has the capacity to produce up to 80kg of hydrogen per day .
Power for the electrolyser is drawn from a combination of an 87kW solar array , a 100kW battery storage and mains grid depending on what ’ s available at the time .
The hydrogen is then stored in a bank of storage tubes at medium and high pressure to be able to refuel both the fuel-cell forklifts that Toyota uses in other parts of the Altona complex and hydrogen FCEVs , like the new Mirai FCEV .
ISSUE 28 APRIL 2021 / WWW . AFMA . ORG . AU 29