France-based global energy and services group ENGIE has launched a fleet of 50 hydrogen-powered Renault Kangoo Z.E. utility vehicles (earlier post), recently made available for long-term rental through Alphabet, a leader in mobility solutions for companies, and inaugurated the first alternative multi-fuel station in France to fuel them.

These vehicles will be used by ENGIE Cofely technicians to ensure multi-technical operations and maintenance work for commercial buildings in the Île-de-France.

Equipped with hydrogen fuel cell range extender systems by Symbio, the these electric vehicles neither produce particles nor gas emissions and are further enhanced with a reduced recharge time and greater autonomy. ENGIE joined Michelin as a shareholder in Symbio in 2016. (Earlier post.)

This station, located in the heart of the International Market of Rungis, has a provisional refueling capacity of 20 kg/day in hydrogen but should increase rapidly to 80 kg/day. This scale corresponds to the immediate needs of current vehicles in the south of Paris. (Marché International de Rungis is the principal market of Paris, mainly for food and horticultural products, located in the commune of Rungis, in the southern suburbs. It is the largest wholesale food market in the world.)

The installation will produce renewable hydrogen on site with an electrolyzer powered solely by renewable energy. The hydrogen station is designed, manufactured and integrated by McPhy. The whole project has been given financial support from the European Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU).

With a stream of more than 25,000 vehicles per day, the Rungis Market, which offers free motorway toll to all clean vehicles that use the station for refueling, is a strategic location for the development of green mobility for freight transport in Ile-de-France.

ENGIE develops solutions that cover the full range of green mobility technologies. ENGIE owns, through its subsidiary GNVert, more than 150 alternative fuel stations in France.

ENGIE is also a leader on the recharging infrastructures market for electric vehicles, with a presence in 30 countries and 980 cities around the world. Mobility is not the only area of application for renewable hydrogen, notably in the area of large-scale energy storage. For ENGIE, renewable hydrogen is one of the missing links needed to construct a more sustainable energy system. This conviction led the Group to create in the beginning of 2018 a business unit with a global vocation dedicated to this market in the making.