There is a growing market and need for electric vehicles that can be fueled using renewable energies such as solar, wind, hydro and biochemical (fuel cell) processes that produce electricity. While there are existing renewable energy systems for supplying electricity to homes and businesses, there are no currently no known systems adapted for use as personal vehicle fueling and storage stations.
Currently, the electric vehicle market is targeting the use of hydrogen fuel cells for electric refueling in accordance with renewable energy priorities recommended by the U.S. Government. Larger scale hydrogen fueling stations have been proposed in government demonstration projects in preparation for building a national infrastructure. In January 2001, HyGen Industries LLC and Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International, Inc., in Torrance, Calif., undertook a project to develop, demonstrate, deploy, commercialize and market renewable hydrogen generation for vehicle fueling systems. In July 2001 the first hydrogen production and fueling station in the Los Angeles area started operation at Honda Motor Company's research and development center. In October 2001 a hydrogen refueling station was installed in Brunnthal-Nord, near Munich, for refueling of a small test fleet of fuel-cell powered buses to connect south-east localities with the east railway station of Munich. The technology was provided by ET (Energy Technology), a company founded in 1997 by hydrogen experts from the space company DASA. The Munich installation was the fourth in Germany after previous installations at the Munich Airport and in Hamburg and Oberstdorf. In 2003, the Schatz Hydrogen Generation Center installed a complete hydrogen production, compression, storage, and dispensing facility at SunLine Transit Agency in Thousand Palms, Calif. The facility provides compressed hydrogen at 3600 psig for use in the SERC hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle fleet operated by SunLine Transit and the City of Palm Desert.
However, such current efforts to create renewable energy refueling stations face a number of intractable problems. Stations which take in compressed hydrogen gas for generation of electricity for refueling electric vehicles have problems with the cost and safety of transporting remotely-generated hydrogen to the station, and the large infrastructure costs of providing sufficient on-site electrical energy storage for use in recharging electric vehicles. Vehicles that come to a central refueling station may experience a long refueling delay to recharge vehicle batteries or to take in hydrogen gas for on-board fuel cell generators. Long delays in refueling each vehicle multiply into worse problems of long lines and traffic congestion for vehicle operators. It is deemed highly desirable to provide a renewable energy refueling approach using facilities that are distributed and adapted to refuel electric vehicles on a personal scale.