The German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) has officially launched a hydrogen research filling station at its Technical Safety Test Site (TTS) in Horstwalde, Brandenburg. Described by BAM as the only research facility of its kind in Germany, the station is designed to trial and develop advanced quality assurance and safety technologies for hydrogen refuelling infrastructure under real-world conditions.
The facility replicates all key components of a hydrogen filling station—including a compressor, buffer storage tanks, gas coolers, and dispensing units—enabling tests of operational processes such as fuel transfer, leak detection, and material stress. A hydrogen-powered vehicle, reportedly a Hyundai Nexo, serves as the test “customer.” The station is supplied with green hydrogen from an on-site electrolyser, with deliveries filling the gap until the electrolyser is powered by a planned photovoltaic system.
“The plant enables us to optimise innovative digital technologies for process monitoring, quality assurance and maintenance planning,” the institute stated. The goal is to improve the reliability and cost-effectiveness of hydrogen refuelling systems and contribute to greater public acceptance of hydrogen as a sustainable fuel.
Frank Wille, Head of the Dangerous Goods Packaging and Energy Storage division at BAM, highlighted the collaborative focus of the new lab: “In partnership projects with industry and academia, we want to address quality and safety-related research questions. We aim to optimise maintenance cycles, detect critical conditions at an early stage and further develop quality and safety standards for reliable hydrogen filling stations.”
As part of BAM’s ‘Digital Quality Infrastructure’ initiative and its H2Safety@BAM hydrogen competence centre, the research station supports multiple digital innovation streams. These include creating digital twins of the refuelling system, real-time safety monitoring, predictive maintenance, and the development of digital structural elements such as QI clouds and digital certificates.
The pilot integrates industrial control systems and sensors into a local hardware platform using concepts like NAMUR Open Architecture. Data gathered on-site will feed into dynamic models that help refine both hardware and software components—bridging the physical lab infrastructure with secure data sharing across the wider quality infrastructure ecosystem.
The facility is open to industry stakeholders, including startups and SMEs, for collaborative research and testing, with a long-term objective of supporting scalable and standardised hydrogen refuelling technologies across Germany and beyond.