INTERVIEW: Linde LienHwa fuels Taiwan’s hydrogen push, one refuelling station at a time
NewsBase Horizons, the thought leadership side of the IntelliNews sister site Newsbase, spoke with Jerry Lin, Merchant & Clean Energy Business Development Manager at Linde LienHwa during the ongoing NET-ZERO TAIWAN / ENERGY TAIWAN event in the Taiwanese capital, discussing the direction the company is taking with promoting and enabling hydrogen use in Taiwan.
“We are definitely moving in this direction,” through a solution Linde LienHwa calls “hydrogen as a service” Lin says. He stressed that the offering goes beyond the fuel itself though: “It’s not just selling hydrogen. We are providing a total solution, including supply of hydrogen, refuelling stations, and everything in between that goes into this business.”
At present, the company is focusing on heavy-duty transportation, which Lin currently sees as the best market for hydrogen. In doing so, Lin pointed to better service and loading capacity than regular fuels, “a very short refuelling time” and a reasonable fuel cost, provided there are government subsidies forthcoming.
On company targets in the next 12 months and in the years ahead, Lin said Linde LienHwa built its first hydrogen station in Taiwan last year, in Kaohsiung in the south of the country. As of late 2026, it is aiming to add another station in the north, perhaps near Taipei or in the centre of the country around Taichung, Taiwan’s second largest city.
On what kind of subsidies the company needs from the government, Lin cannot offer details at present but responds that “The government is actually working on this as well,” as those officials the firm is in contact with understand that hydrogen still costs far more than electricity or diesel he states. To this end Lin claims the government is looking to compensate the emerging sector with subsidies so that hydrogen’s cost per kilometre matches what electricity and diesel users pay in fuelling their vehicles.
But when pushed on the type of hydrogen being used; grey hydrogen derived from natural gas, blue hydrogen the product of the same natural-gas process, but with most of the CO₂ captured and stored underground and green hydrogen made by electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, Lin added a new form of hydrogen to the mix. “We call our hydrogen a low carbon hydrogen,” he said. “So we don’t actually specify it as a colour” in the more commonly used sense.
He explained that the company’s steam reforming technology naturally produces carbon dioxide alongside hydrogen, but Linde LienHwa captures this CO2 and uses it in other processes. It then uses this low-carbon hydrogen across all of its products, customers and markets.
NewsBase Horizons put to Lin the view held by many, that hydrogen is still seen as an out-of-reach fuel of the future because it cannot be easily transported, to do so is expensive and for a number of other physical reasons; a problem captive hydrogen projects are now working to circumvent in some parts of Asia.
According to Lin this is a question of demand. In some countries, he said, liquid hydrogen is used during the transportation process because the volumes being shifted are huge. In Taiwan, a tiny island when viewed alongside other hydrogen markets such as India, Lin reveals that the company uses trailers to transport hydrogen as a gas, which he considers more reasonable for the local market - and presumably the easiest option in that trucks are able to reach any part of Taiwan by road in as little as four to five hours.
For now then, while the Linde LienHwa infrastructure in Taiwan is still modest given the company’s lone refuelling station, and some aspects of improving that set up are still vague with significant expansion some way off, the firm’s goal of “having another one, maybe in the north or in the central areas in the coming years” remains Taiwan’s best bet at enabling hydrogen to gain a proper foothold in the country.
Taiwan's TCC, Walsin Lihwa, King Lien Chung and Lotung Steel have all taken up oxyfuel combustion systems supplied by Linde LienHwa, Taiwan’s largest industrial gas manufacturer, the company said on October 12.
The technique feeds oxygen into a furnace instead of, or in addition to, ordinary air. Since air is 79% nitrogen, which does nothing to help fuel burn, stripping it out cuts the volume of exhaust gas and makes combustion more efficient, a press release by Linde LienHwa says. The company says that fuel use can fall by as much as half and production capacity can rise by a similar margin, with results varying by process and operating conditions. The systems also work with a range of furnace designs, and a flameless version can at least halve reheating times.
The pressure to adopt such measures globally is growing, particularly in Taiwan now that the country has moved into a new stage of carbon pricing, pushing manufacturers to use energy more efficiently and bring down emissions.
“Oxyfuel combustion can help high-emitting industries improve their combustion processes and energy efficiency, making it an important option for industrial decarbonisation,” said Jeffery Shan, Vice President, Bulk Gases and Clean Energy, Linde LienHwa. “Leading companies in Taiwan, including TCC, Walsin Lihwa, King Lien Chung and Lotung Steel, are adopting these technologies as part of their broader energy-saving and decarbonisation strategies.”
The company cited results from Japan, where Chiyoda Steel installed OXYGON, Linde’s flameless oxyfuel system. Gas consumption there dropped by 58.2%, and the time needed to preheat ladles shrank from 5 hours 40 minutes to 3 hours.
Hydrogen push targets commercial vehicles
The gas supplier is also trying to get hydrogen into commercial fleets across Taiwan. Christine Miao, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Linde LienHwa, said trucks, buses and logistics vehicles have become the main force behind hydrogen mobility.
“Following the completion of our hydrogen refueling station last year, Linde LienHwa has worked with group affiliates Lien Hwa New Energy and Asia Hydrogen Energy to connect logistics fleets and transportation operators with hydrogen mobility solutions. By combining procurement and service models, we aim to reduce customers’ upfront capital investment and accelerate adoption,” Miao added.
Central to that effort for Linde LienHwa is a Hydrogen-as-a-Service (HaaS) offering, developed with partners from the logistics, transport and hydrogen sectors. Rather than paying the full cost of expensive equipment and infrastructure at the outset, customers can obtain hydrogen and associated infrastructure services under long-term contracts or pay-per-use terms.
Market data also back the focus on heavier vehicles, according to Linde LienHwa. Figures from SNE Research show that commercial hydrogen vehicles held up better than passenger models in the first half of 2025, when demand for the latter softened. The International Energy Agency (IEA) sees heavy-duty trucks as the only part of the fuel cell vehicle market that is expanding quickly with the global hydrogen vehicle market forecast to reach $427.3bn by 2031, up from $57.1bn in 2023, a compound annual growth rate of 29.4%.
Taiwan's Energy Administration hit back at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) after the Danish fund's local chief said the government had rushed its offshore wind tenders, Taiwan Times reported on October 14. The agency, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said it found the remarks puzzling and regrettable because CIP has won more capacity than any other developer.
The row comes as Taiwan prepares to allocate capacity under the third round of its zonal offshore wind programme. Bids for Round 3-3 closed at the end of September, and the ministry plans to finish selection and announce allocations before the end of the year.
Hsu Nai-wen, managing director of CIP, made the comments at the Taiwan International Smart Energy Week. Hsu said Rounds 3-1 through 3-3 had failed to draw investors and urged the government to make bidding rules and market conditions more attractive in Round 3-4. Hsu also called for a full survey of available sea areas before that round.
Hsu said holding Round 3-4 in the first half of next year would be too soon. The earlier rounds had failed because they were constantly rushed, Hsu said, adding that many developers wanted bolder changes to the tender rules.
Hsu said CIP had joined every government tender since the second-phase selection in 2018. After each win it had paid on schedule and secured financing on time with backing from state-owned shareholders, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hsu added.
Future projects will have to move into deeper waters, Hsu said, citing concerns from NGOs and weaker winds closer to shore. Deeper sites require more advanced technology and cost more, and very few developers in Taiwan can build them, Hsu noted. Hsu said better screening of bidders and greater lending by domestic banks would be key to that shift.
The Energy Administration said Taiwan had pursued offshore wind for more than a decade. It said every round had gone through public consultation and reached consensus before a fair selection process began. The view of one company could not erase what Taiwan had achieved, the agency added.
In Round 3-3, CIP bid with its Fengmiao 3 offshore wind farm, while Ørsted entered the Dadu 1 project. The two sites, off Taichung and Changhua, overlap heavily, and only one is expected to be selected.
