Palisades Selected to House Hydrogen Fueling Station

As visitors to this month’s Los Angeles Auto Show got a glimpse of highly anticipated hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, such as the Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Tucson and Audi A7 h-tron, state energy officials confirmed they are aiming to bring a hydrogen fueling station to Pacific Palisades by 2015, according to the California Energy Commission.

Energy commission officials originally planned for the Exxon Mobil station at Swarthmore and Sunset to serve as the site. But a recent purchase deal between developer Rick Caruso and the parcel’s owner, Saeed Kohanoff, changed these plans.

Kohanoff is planning to move the Mobil station to the site of the Shell Station one block west at Via de la Paz and Sunset when escrow closes.

There are no plans for a hydrogen fueling station at the Shell site, said Kohanoff, adding that he is opting out of the program.

“I just don’t see it being profitable right now,” Kohanoff said.

There just aren’t enough hydrogen fuel cell cars on the road to make this fiscally viable, he added.

California Energy Commission officials, however, are determined to have Pacific Palisades serve as one of the locations, according to Teresa Schilling, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission.

Schilling told the Palisadian-Post that the CEC has conducted numerous studies, and they are committed to opening up a station in the Palisades because of its geographically strategic importance.

“We will work with other gas station owners to bring the station,” Schilling said. “We want one in the Palisades.”

Schilling said her agency would continue looking for another location here in town until this goal is accomplished.

If successful, HyGen Industries will operate the hydrogen fueling station in the Palisades, which could also include gas and ethanol options too.

The Palisades station is part of a larger rollout in California as the state prepares for the full commercial launch of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by automakers in 2016.

“Transitioning to low- and zero-emission vehicles is critical to meeting air-quality goals and to reducing the emissions that lead to climate change,” said Energy Commissioner Janea A. Scott in May, when more than $40 million in additional funding was approved for the program.

The funding will help California accelerate the “construction of a reliable and affordable refueling infrastructure to support the commercial market launch of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,” Scott said.

HyGen Industries was awarded more than $1.7 million in grant funding from the California Energy Commission to develop and operate a Pacific Palisades site.

In total, HyGen received more than $5 million to operate three stations in Southern California, including one in the Palisades.

Construction is required to be completed by Oct. 31, 2015 under the terms of the grant, according to documents released by the California Energy Commission.

Funding for grants is being provided through vehicle licensing fees and earmarked funds from the state energy commission, which are required to go to programs that improve air quality.

Automakers have been slow to roll out hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the commercial market because of a lack of fueling station infrastructure. This latest effort by the State is seeking to resolve the lack of infrastructure, according to the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

CaFCP is a collaboration between fuel cell companies, auto manufacturers and government agencies.

Before the larger scale commercial rollout can take place, a 100-station network throughout California must be operational by the end of 2016, according to the CaFCP report.

Most of the stations are going to be in clusters, and some of the first to be active will be in Santa Monica, West L.A., Torrance and other nearby coastal cities. They will help fuel approximately 20,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on California’s roads and highways.

Northern California clusters to have the earliest hydrogen fueling stations will be in Berkeley and San Francisco’s South Bay, according to the CaFCP.

Since the first stations are not expected to be fully utilized and be profitable in the early years of the rollout, they are being subsidized by the state.