ORLEN's Second Hydrogen Refuelling Station Becomes Available to General Public in Poland

ORLEN has inaugurated its second publicly accessible hydrogen refuelling station, located in Katowice, Polish region of Silesia. The new facility will be supplied by the hydrogen HUB launched earlier this year in Wloclawek. The new addition has brought the number of ORLEN Group’s public hydrogen refuelling stations to four, of which two are located in its domestic market (Poznan and Katowice) and two in the Czech Republic (Prague and Litvínov).

Built at ORLEN’s traditional fuel station at 22 Murckowska Street along the arterial route leading from the city to the A4 motorway, the facility operates 24/7, serving both commercial and private hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Equipped with two dispensers, it offers a 350-bar system tailored for heavyweights like buses and trucks, and a 700-bar option for passenger cars. With a minimum capacity of 630 kg of hydrogen, the facility is capable of fuelling up to 20 buses and five passenger vehicles daily.

The newly launched station is part of the Clean Cities – Hydrogen Mobility in Poland project, an ambitious initiative co-funded by the European Union through the CEF Blending Facility with additional backing from Poland’s National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOSiGW) under the ‘Support for EV charging and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure’ programme.

Katowice’s debut follows closely on the heels of ORLEN’s first publicly available hydrogen station in Poznan, launched just months earlier in June. Besides serving private motorists, it supports a fleet of 25 city buses operated by the municipal transport company MPK Poznan. ORLEN’s hydrogen journey, however, dates back to 2023 with the pilot project at Kraków’s Wola Duchacka bus depot, which remains a refuelling point for the city’s public transport buses.

In the coming years, further hydrogen refuelling facilities are set to be launched progressively across Poland: in Bielsko-Biala, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Walbrzych, Kraków, Wloclawek, Gdynia, Pila and Warsaw. These rollouts will form the second stage of the Clean Cities – Hydrogen Mobility in Poland project. Looking ahead, the project’s third phase aims to establish 16 additional stations, with an unprecedented non-repayable EU grant of EUR 62 million secured by ORLEN in April this year to support these plans.

By 2030, the Company envisions an international network of over 100 hydrogen refuelling stations, weaving through Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. This extensive infrastructure is designed to cater to a broad spectrum of hydrogen-powered transport, spanning private cars, public transit, cargo fleets, and rail systems. Hydrogen will be delivered through a European chain of hydrogen hubs powered by renewable energy and innovative facilities converting municipal waste into zero- and low-carbon hydrogen.

In August 2024, the international HySPARK project, led by ORLEN in collaboration with a consortium of 17 global partners, marked a milestone as the first in Poland to receive funding from the EU Clean Hydrogen Partnership programme. Close to EUR 9 million will be allocated to the production and testing of hydrogen-powered vehicles for Chopin Airport and Warsaw’s public transport system.