3 Questions to the Hynomed Team

TF - What problems does Hynomed address?

HT - The Hynomed project is the keystone of the Hynovar program. It aims to build a hydrogen mobility ecosystem addressing land and sea mobility uses. The partners of the project - Engie Solutions, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Var and Banque des Territoires (CDC Group) - wanted to equip the city of Toulon with a public refueling station, open to all users. The first infrastructure should be built in 2022 at the city's port hub and offer no less than 400kg of renewable hydrogen per day. This is an ambitious volume that meets the needs of major partnerships. In the short term, the commitment of the Telo Martius project with a high-capacity maritime shuttle acquired by the Bateliers de la Côte d'Azur and that of Toulon with the greening of 7 to 10 hydrogen buses are key factors. Alongside those, every effort is being made to ensure that local authorities and companies become consumers but above all drivers of this virtuous mobility with the purchase of light vehicles. The SDIS 83 is one of the first structures to have positioned itself in this respect. Toulon's cabs are also paying attention and could replicate the model of the Parisian Hype cabs.

A second, smaller station is also planned in the west part of the department. It could be located near the Paul Ricard racetrack.

In the longer term, the prospects for developing mobility using the station are limitless. On the city’s side, why not imagine a hydrogen busway, or even the entire network of hydrogen-powered bus boats, a sizeable fleet since Toulon is the leading network in France. The location of the future port station was not chosen at random. Alongside the railroad, the Hynomed station could address a hydrogen train. Its privileged access to the seafront for boaters also makes it an asset for decarbonizing the maritime uses of France's leading military port, as well as yachting and maritime freight...

TF - How does Hynomed concretely adress these issues? 

HT - Designing a public station is a much more complex exercise than building a station dedicated to a specific user, especially when you know that the hydrogen station model is based on captive fleets. But our shareholders at Hynomed wanted to offer the region an incentive facility that would encourage the acceptance and transition of the maximum number of people in the Var and we must salute this entrepreneurial audacity and this singular desire to address the citizens.

The short-term objective is a 100% reduction in emissions from all vehicles using the two stations. Hynomed is also and above all intended to act as an operator for the construction and maintenance of equivalent structures in the department.

The Var Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) is drawing up a second outline of its Hynovar program. It is now a question of massifying the production and the uses. The CCI federates 40 companies and 4 communities around 20 ecosystem projects gathered in a second phase of the Meta Program HYNOVAR. It is leading the governance of this program and promoting synergies via Steering Committees. Although the projects are essentially based in the Var region, they have a reach from Fos to Monaco and cover the entire value chain.

This new program is a real support and complement to the dynamics initiated by the 1st Hynovar,and is based on a massification via a local green hydrogen production and thematic clusters of uses within a 100km radius. Within 4 to 5 years, it could represent the equivalent of 100 million euros of investment, 50 direct jobs and 100 indirect jobs.

A major ecological and economic challenge!

The CCI is directly involved in certain related projects such as a training structure for hydrogen mobility alongside regional companies, a sector committee, or the electrification of ferries via a fuel cell.

TF - What would be the ideal development scenario for Hynomed?

HT - Hynomed operates in the context of a new emerging sector. While many observers still wonder who should be the chicken or the egg, in the Var, it is well understood that structures and uses must move forward together. The intentions of Hynomed and its partners are in perfect synergy and exchanges are nourished to promote the almost simultaneous delivery of the station and the first vehicles.

What could help the project today would be for mobility manufacturers to move forward at a good pace on innovations and to offer French vehicles very quickly in all fields: lifting, maritime, heavy mobility and light vehicles.

It is also necessary to secure hydrogen production through massive purchases and to deploy a pricing support policy to make it competitive with fossil fuels, which is not yet the case.

Hynomed and the local authorities of Var involved in the Hynovar program strongly believe in a strategy of small steps that involves the creation of small, relevant, acceptable and encouraging ecosystems.

If the market is now dominated by innovations in full H2 propulsion, we must also have a close look at innovations in retrofitting and hybridization that could allow affordability and a major environmental impact insofar as this circular approach would promote the greening of the existing fleet.

Those 3 questions were written following the Transition Forum Call for Expressions of Interest. Hynomed is part of the top 20 selected projects.