Nordhausen: How an Entrepreneur Is Fighting for a Hydrogen-Powered Future Despite Setbacks
Nordhausen. Maximator Hydrogen, a company that manufactures hydrogen refueling stations in Nordhausen, has had a difficult year. “We had to restructure in response to market developments. We’ve managed this process successfully,” says Managing Director Mathias Kurras during a visit by Thuringia’s Environment Minister Tilo Kummer (BSW), who stopped in Nordhausen on Tuesday as part of his summer tour.
The company had to lay off up to 50 employees and currently has just under 150 workers in Nordhausen. For Kurras, however, that’s no reason to throw in the towel. Hydrogen has become a passion for him—“a passion that creates suffering,” as he emphasizes. He firmly believes in the future and sustainability of the fuel, which, unlike gasoline or diesel, produces zero emissions.
Applied for funding three times, failed three times
Due to the challenging German market—where the hydrogen refueling station network was recently reduced from 80 to 50—Maximator has increasingly expanded its activities to other European countries. “We built a hydrogen refueling station in the Geirangerfjord in Norway to refuel large cruise ships there,” he cites as an example. Or in Jyväskylä, Finland, and in the Netherlands. New projects include five refueling stations near Milan, Italy, and two facilities in Poland.
“All in all, we’ve sold 70 gas stations,” Kurras calculates. While that’s far fewer than the 100 stations that could be produced annually in the factory buildings constructed in 2021, But it’s still enough to generate about 50 million euros in annual revenue. In addition, the company isn’t relying solely on the production of fueling stations; it’s also further developing compressor technology as an additional pillar of its business and manufacturing trailer-mounted filling systems.
Another problem for Maximator Hydrogen is the lack of eligibility for subsidies. “We’ve already applied three times for various programs and have been rejected three times,” reports Kurras. “We don’t meet the requirements because we’re not located in the TVEN corridor of the trans-European transport networks or in German urban regions,” explains the Nordhausen-based entrepreneur
Environment Minister Tilo Kummer cannot offer much hope for state funding either. “I signed a funding guideline for sustainable mobility on Monday,” he says in Nordhausen. But the money available there will hardly be enough to enable companies like Hydrogen to make major strides.
So the Nordhausen-based company must explore other avenues to be prepared for the future. Mathias Kurras envisions a hydrogen cluster for the Southern Harz region. Public transit vehicles, heavy-duty commercial vehicles, garbage trucks, and emergency vehicles used by the police and fire department could be retrofitted to run on hydrogen. Potential partners include the Nordhausen public transit authority, the municipal utilities, the Thuringian police, the university, and companies from the Nordhausen district.
But that’s just the beginning. Kurras envisions a hydrogen network for eastern Germany in which Maximator would hold a market share of up to 70 percent among refueling stations. The network would consist of 44 refueling stations, 31 of which would be provided by Maximator. There are currently eight hydrogen refueling stations in eastern Germany, with five more planned.
Kurras, from Nordhausen, has also crunched the numbers on the cost side. One kilogram of hydrogen would cost 15.20 euros, which corresponds to a price per kilometer of 1.07 euros. “That puts us at the current level for diesel,” Kurras calculates.
Hans-Peter Blum ( Thüringer Allgemeine)