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Honda Begins Experiments with Hydrogen HES

October 01, 2003 by Jeff Shepard

Honda R&D Co. Ltd. (Torrance, CA), a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co. Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) responsible for research and development activities, has established an experimental Home Energy Station (HES) that generates hydrogen from natural gas for use in fuel cell vehicles while supplying electricity and hot water to the home.

The new HES system, jointly developed with strategic fuel cell partner Plug Power Inc., can currently produce enough hydrogen to refill the tank of a Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell vehicle taking just a few minutes once a day. It consists of a reformer to extract hydrogen from natural gas; a fuel cell unit to provide power for the overall system that utilizes some of the extracted hydrogen; a refiner to purify the hydrogen; a compressor for pressurizing the extracted hydrogen; and a high-pressure tank unit to store the pressurized hydrogen.