Estonia’s energy company Alexela and cleantech startup PowerUP Energy Technologies have unveiled the world’s first smart hydrogen cabinet at Alexela’s filling station at Kakumäe harbor in Estonia’s capital Tallinn.
The first of its kind smart hydrogen cabinet is targeted towards small application users of hydrogen, including sailing boats, yachts, and campervans. To show mobility of the smart cabinet, it will soon be shifted to a more commercial harbour in Tallinn, located in Pirita.
The smart cabinet is fully automated and filled with lightweight hydrogen cylinders, provided by PowerUP Energy Technologies. With almost no human contact, the smart cabinets will be operated by a mobile payments system application called Paytailor, which makes mobile payments easy for its customers.
In addition to this, the application provides its customers a seamless experience of operating the smart cabinet. The customers can open the smart cabinet, choose the number of hydrogen tanks they want to rent, and make the payment, all via the application.
Powered by solar panels, the cabinet is a smart way for sailors, campervan owners, or any other small application users of hydrogen to easily rent hydrogen cylinders, using an app.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Ivar Kruusenberg, Founder and CEO at PowerUP Energy Technologies said: “Hydrogen has a promising role to play in achieving decarbonisation targets globally.
With hydrogen presence in Estonia being fairly limited due to lack of large-scale hydrogen production in the country as well as very few fuel cells implemented in real applications, this smart hydrogen cabinet will be the first step in Estonia’s energy transition to the most sought-after clean energy fuel – hydrogen. Through this collaboration, we are reassuring our commitment to provide clean and safe energy solutions for everyone.”
The pilot hydrogen smart cabinet is a simple and cost-effective solution to hydrogen distribution. Based on the response from the customers in Estonia, it is planned to be duplicated in other European countries, as well.
Talking about the smart cabinet launch, Marti Hääl, Executive Vice President of the Estonian energy company Alexela, said that they have the readiness to supply hydrogen to meet the rising demand. “The hydrogen solution presented with PowerUP is an example of how the value chain of hydrogen is actually doable. The task today, regarding hydrogen, is to get enough consumers to spur the production in order to achieve competitive value for the consumers. But definitely, we at Alexela are ready for hydrogen entering the transport sector wider.”
