In July 2009 I had talked about how Turkish students had developed the SAHIMO hydrogen car that gets around 340 mpge. Last year the International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies (ICHET) based in Istanbul decided to build the EkoKaravan recreational vehicle (pictured above) that runs off a combination of solar, wind, batteries and hydrogen fuel cell.
According to Green Prophet, “Released last year, the EkoKaravan is a mobile home that runs off wind, solar, battery, and hydrogen energy systems and could be used for anything from disaster relief situations to tourism. It’s also the first vehicle to combine four energy systems, according to Hatipoğlu. A 1kW wind turbine and 1.7kW solar array are the caravan’s primary sources of energy, and 17kWh batteries hold about three days’ worth of energy in the bottom of the vehicle. A hydrogen fuel cell converts excess energy into hydrogen so that if all these sources are depleted, the hydrogen can be converted into electricity by the same fuel cell. Hydrogen extends the range of the vehicle, in other words, but is not its primary fuel.”
Now, officials in Turkey are stating that they may have hydrogen infrastructure in place to support H2 cars and other vehicles as early as 2020. Currently a hydrogen hybrid bus is running in Turkey and a hydrogen hybrid boat is being built. These smaller projects are starting to add up so that officials are taking notice.
If the government decides to subsidize the building of hydrogen fueling stations such as the one now being built in the Golden Horn region of Bosphorus and the expansion of the European Hydrogen Highway continues, then Turkey will also expand its efforts.
Turkey may also become a hub for hydrogen trains (hydrail) so there is a lot of development going on in this country in regard to hydrogen technology that is underreported. So, even though Turkey may not be leading the hydrogen charge, they are at least trying to keep pace with what is going on with this technology, which is more than I can say for (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) other countries.