page_title: Fuel cell
section_title: Fueling stations
hierarchical_section_title: Fuel cell / Applications / Fueling stations
caption_attribution_description: English: Honda FCX
context_page_description: A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel and an oxidizing agent into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from metals and their ions or oxides that are commonly already present in the battery, except in flow batteries. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.
  The first fuel cells were invented by Sir William Grove in 1838. The first commercial use of fuel cells came more than a century later following the invention of the hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell by Francis Thomas Bacon in 1932. The alkaline fuel cell, also known as the Bacon fuel cell after its inventor, has been used in NASA space programs since the mid-1960s to generate power for satellites and space capsules. Since then, fuel cells have been used in many other applications. Fuel cells are used for primary and backup power for commercial, industrial and residential buildings and in remote or inaccessible areas.
context_section_description: In 2013, The New York Times reported that there were "10 hydrogen stations available to the public in the entire United States: one in Columbia, S.C., eight in Southern California and the one in Emeryville". As of December 2016, there were 31 publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations in the US, 28 of which were located in California.
  A public hydrogen refueling station in Iceland operated from 2003 to 2007. It served three buses in the public transport net of Reykjavík. The station produced its own hydrogen with an electrolyzing unit. The 14 stations in Germany were planned to be expanded to 50 by 2015 through its public–private partnership Now GMBH.
  By May 2017, there were 91 hydrogen fueling stations in Japan. As of 2016, Norway planned to build a network of hydrogen stations between the major cities, starting in 2017.
caption: Hydrogen fueling station.
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