GET rolls out Kern’s first commercial-scale hydrogen station | News

“Gone are the days of stepping on the throttle and having black smoke” billow from the tailpipe, said Director of Maintenance Chris James at the Golden Empire Transit District.

James, CEO Karen King and other GET officials were joined Thursday morning by a small crowd gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate a more-than $3 million filling station intended to help the district meet a state-mandated goal of zero-emission public transportation by 2040.

So far, the district has 10 hydrogen-cell buses and a small fleet of paratransit vehicles powered by the same fuel. Two more hydrogen buses are on backorder, with more expected to be purchased later using federal and other taxpayer dollars.

One-third of the hydrogen coming out of the station is produced using renewable natural gas from sources such as dairies employing so-called digesters to capture methane from cow manure. The other two-thirds comes from the combustion of regular natural gas.

The plan is to eventually use only 100-percent renewable hydrogen derived from recycled water and electricity from solar and wind power. GET’s installation taps electricity from a nearby photovoltaic solar array to offset a portion of its power needs.

The station includes capacity for storing up to 15,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen at negative-420 degrees. The fluid connects to a device that converts the hydrogen to vapor.

Kern leads the state in production of renewable energy, though it is not expected to play a major role in California’s bid to become one of six hydrogen energy hubs around the United States. Even so, there are a few proposals for producing hydrogen around the county, such as through gasification of agricultural and other waste streams.

GET’s new fueling station is believed to be the first significant local producer of hydrogen power, albeit “gray hydrogen” because of its use of petroleum as a feedstock.

Hydrogen is considered safer than fossil fuels but, because it is flammable, requires precautionary measures and special training for first responders.

Jaimie Levin, senior managing consultant and director of West Coast operations at the Center for Transportation and the Environment, which advised GET on the project, said that although hydrogen isn’t the only solution for reaching zero emissions, it offers four key advantages to battery-electric.

He said hydrogen offers greater range, reduced weight, greater speed of refueling and stronger resilience in case of heat waves that require electric vehicles to delay charging because of demand from air-conditioning units.

Even with GET’s consumption of natural gas to power the hydrogen station, Levin added, the gas puts out 40 percent less greenhouse gas because of the greater efficiency of hydrogen fuel-cell engines. Plus, he said, the amount of water involved in hydrogen production equates to about half the water consumed by conventional petroleum refining.

Environmental benefits were foremost for GET Board Member Leasa Engle.

“It’s exciting,” she said after Thursday’s ribbon-cutting, “because future generations are going to be able to have cleaner air.”