Major platform update: Station Layout
We are making station equipment definition more coherent, precise and understandable.
Post series
This blog post is the first of a series of 3 that will be released following its publication.
Evolving with the ecosystem
H2-Stations has been the central European platform for data on hydrogen refuelling stations since 2019. Since then, the hydrogen mobility ecosystem has evolved, and with it, the need for data. A car driver wants to know whether a station offers 700 bar and whether it is open. A fleet manager planning lorry routes needs more information: how many lorries can refuel at the same time, at what pressure and using which connector, how quickly, and whether there is enough hydrogen in stock for a full tank. Data users building on the platform need all of this in a format they can process. This release is our first major update to keep pace with these needs, with what we call the ‘station layout’ as its foundation.
From coarse categories to detailed station representation
Until now, the platform described a station’s layout as a number of dispensers across three fuel categories: light-duty vehicles at 350 bar, light-duty vehicles at 700 bar and heavy-duty vehicles at 350 bar. We recently added a fourth, heavy-duty vehicles at 700 bar.
Even with this adjustment, fuel categories remain insufficient for the following reasons:
- They aggregate: multiple physical refuelling points are grouped into a single figure, and the shared storage behind them disappears entirely.
- They are coarse: ‘heavy transport at 350 bar’ says nothing about the connector, the number of refuelling nozzles or the side from which a vehicle must approach.
- They are ambiguous: two stations with the same figures can serve very different vehicles, at very different speeds.
This is the reason we introduce the station layout update, modelling the station according to its physical equipment: dispensers, nozzles, storage units and products. What operators enter corresponds to what they install, and what data users receive corresponds to what a driver finds on site. The data becomes easier to display and easier to understand.
Note
Fuel categories will remain available as they provide a quick overview on the public map, but will be derived from precise data instead of being the source of truth.
From the HRS operator's side
If you are an operator with stations registered on the portal, you can now register the layouts. This will help drivers and data users to better see the station capabilities.
Updates have to be made through the portal, just like the rest of the static data. A guide is available in the documentation, and the concept page explains the model in detail.
A slow roll out is expected
The release is recent, so the new data will appear as operators enter it. Layouts are entered by the operators themselves and will become visible, station by station, on the map and in the Export API v2 over the coming weeks and months.
What’s next
The station layout forms the foundation for the next step: extended protocol configuration. Operators wishing to go further will soon be able to specify the exact capacities for each fuel nozzle, such as the applicable tank protocol and the edition of the standard, pressure class, pre-cooling and flow characteristics. This level of detail is particularly important for heavy-duty transport, where these parameters determine which lorries a station can actually serve and how quickly. The beta is scheduled for September 2026, with the data becoming available via the Export API v2. Details can be found on our roadmap.
The structure also underpins the second part of this release: four types of real-time data, each linked to the part of the installation to which they belong. This section concerns the systems that send live signals to the platform and will be covered in a following post.
Stay up to date
Full details can be found in the release notes. For questions and onboarding: please consult our documentation or contact us at h2-stations@clean-hydrogen.europa.eu.