Italy To Launch World’s First Green Hydrogen Refueling Station

Zaha Hadid Architects has unveiled its design for their ambitious project: the NatPowerH Hydrogen Refueling Station. It’s dubbed as the world’s first green hydrogen refueling infrastructure for Italy’s boating industry, and expected to launch in 25 marinas and ports across the country.

Led by NatPower H, a subsidiary of the NatPower group, the aim is for 100 stations across the Mediterranean in the next six years. This way, eliminating a projected 45,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions from Mediterranean recreational boats yearly. It’s a 50-square-meter station designed to harness wind, solar, and other renewable energy to emit only water vapor and warm air to generate hydrogen-generated electrical power. 

Zaha Hadid Architects designed the NatPowerH Hydrogen Refueling Station to be scalable, sustainable, and safe. It will supply PED certified low-pressure metal hydride technologies tailored for marine applications. It is also modular so it can adapt to diverse locations throughout the Mediterranean. Thus, allowing for a customized configuration so the refueling station can adapt to specific location needs like seating, pedestrian turnover within ports and marinas, size, and bike charging facilities.

The stations use 3D robotic material placement to achieve a fully recyclable, dry-assembled masonry. This way, minimizing construction waste and the design is also nature-inspired. It mimics the striated structures and fluid geometries common in Mediterranean landscapes and marine ecosystems.

The NatPowerH Hydrogen Refueling Station also caters to NatPower H’s focus on circularity and the preservation of marine ecosystems. As such, the outcome is a circular construction built with low-carbon concrete generated through geometry rather than increased use of materials, thus minimizing structural materials by up to 50% but without compromising on performance. 

Images courtesy of Zaha Hadid