Installed in a car park at Incheon airport near Seoul by SK Innovation subsidiary Hyverse, the station has the capacity to dispense 320kg of hydrogen per hour, which could support up to 240 buses per day.

Liquid hydrogen is being supplied to the station by SK’s 30,000-tonne-per-year plant in Seo-Gu, Incheon, which came online in 2024.

36 of the airport’s 68 shuttle buses are currently hydrogen-powered, with further deployments planned this year.

The Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Incheon City, and Hyverse, a subsidiary of SK Innovation, provided funding for the project.

Buses have emerged as a dominant end-use in the mobility sector, with hydrogen-powered fleets being deployed by players across the world, and SK Innovation sees airport buses as a “particularly effective” method of reducing carbon emissions.

“The average daily mileage of airport buses is 548km, more than twice that of city buses (229km),” it said in a statement.

Jeon Youngjun, Head of New Energy Business at SK Innovation E&S, said the mobility hub will serve as a reliable fuelling centre for hydrogen buses nationwide.

This comes after Chinese-owned TAM Europe delivered a fleet of 700-bar hydrogen buses for public transport in Seoul.