No. 782: Kawasaki Heavy backs up the spread of fuel-cell vehicles (September 28, 2013)

Business trend:

A hydrogen station in Tokyo

Kawasaki Heavy decided to build ships exclusively for the import of liquefied hydrogen and start to import liquefied hydrogen from Australia starting in 2017. The government will formulate safety standards to support the Kawasaki’s decision. With the launch of the ships, import hydrogen will be 50% cheaper than domestic hydrogen. The company will start the substantiative experiment to import liquefied hydrogen from the State of Victoria starting in 2017 with an investment of 60 billion yen. 

It will build two ships, each of which can transport 2,500 m cubic meters per voyage. They will be able to import 2,700 tons of liquefied hydrogen per year that is equivalent to the consumption by 35,000 fuel-cell vehicles. It also plans to construct equipment to liquefy hydrogen in Australia. After establishing the safety system and sales networks, Kawasaki will build two large ships capable of transporting 160,000 cubic meters of liquefied hydrogen by 2030. That is, it will have a capacity to supply hydrogen equal to the annual consumption of three million fuel-cell vehicles in 2030.

Australian hydrogen is relatively cheap because hydrogen is extracted from brown coal that is watery in Australia. The price of liquefied hydrogen to be imported from Australia is estimated at 29.8 yen per one cubic meter. The distribution cost in Japan is estimated at about 60.0 yen that is about half the price of liquefied hydrogen extracted from liquefied natural gas in Japan. Kawasaki already started negotiations on the import of liquefied hydrogen with Russia. Toyota and Honda are scheduled to launch a fuel-cell vehicle for about five million yen toward 2015. Domestic energy companies will build 100 hydrogen stations by 2015. 

 Enjoy driving Honda's fuel-cell vehicle on the public road.