A first in Almere: city farm makes and refuels its own solar hydrogen

Beside the barn at Vliervelden farm, in the Almere district of Oosterwold, stand several large cylindrical storage tanks and an installation that produces hydrogen. A hose feeds the gas straight into the tank. A converted small tractor and a couple of company vehicles now run on it.

For urban farmer Tom Saat it closes a loop that had been open for years. "We are a sustainable farm. So it is actually odd that we still depend on diesel," he says. The business burns around 50,000 litres of diesel a year.

700 kilos of hydrogen, made with its own sunshine

The installation can produce and store roughly 700 kilograms of hydrogen. According to Saat that equates to some 5,000 litres of diesel — a fraction of annual consumption, but a genuine first step. More importantly, the electricity for the electrolysis comes from the farm's own solar panels, which makes the hydrogen fully green.

The run-up was long. "Two years ago I still had my doubts about whether it would work," Saat says. "Now the system is running and we produce our own hydrogen. I am the first in the Netherlands and apparently the first in Europe as well."

Why hydrogen on an arable farm

Going fully battery-electric is not yet the route Saat sees for his machinery. Tractors demand a lot of power, and the batteries needed to deliver it make a machine heavy. On farmland that counts twice over: the heavier the machine, the more the soil compacts, and compacted soil yields less. A fuel cell with hydrogen tanks weighs less for the same working time.

The farm is no newcomer here. In 2021 Stadsboerderij Almere became the world's first customer for the H2Trac EOX-175, an electric tractor with a hydrogen fuel cell as range extender. What was missing back then was the fuel itself. Now it sits in the yard.

Refuelling is possible — but not for everyone

Outsiders cannot simply top up at Tom's place. "It would be possible, but it is not allowed," Saat explains. "That would make me a public filling station, and that brings a lot of extra paperwork and permits."

There is a second issue. Cars, buses and trucks may run on hydrogen on Dutch roads, but tractors may not: the RDW vehicle authority has no inspection protocol for converted hydrogen tractors. So Saat cannot drive such a tractor from one field to the next along a public road. For now, only a small tractor has been converted, working exclusively on the farm's own land.

What it costs, and what it could become

The investment runs to around 120,000 to 130,000 euros. For private individuals that is not yet economic, Saat acknowledges. The running costs already look better: "Converted to diesel, our cost price is around one euro per litre."

The biggest promise, he believes, lies further ahead: seasonal storage. Batteries lose capacity over time, whereas hydrogen can be stored indefinitely without losing quality. Solar power generated in abundance during summer can carry over into winter as hydrogen — useful on a site where the grid does not always have room to take exports.

In brief

• Location: Vliervelden farm, Oosterwold (Almere), part of Stadsboerderij Almere
• Capacity: production and storage of around 700 kg of hydrogen, equal to roughly 5,000 litres of diesel according to Tom Saat
• Power source: the farm's own solar panels, so fully green hydrogen
• Use: one converted small tractor (own land only) and several company vehicles
• Investment: around 120,000 to 130,000 euros; cost price roughly one euro per litre of diesel equivalent
• Bottleneck: the RDW has no inspection protocol yet for converted hydrogen tractors

Sources

• Almere Deze Week – Primeur: Stadsboerderij Almere maakt en tankt waterstof, Marco Penninkhof (6 August 2026)
• Sterke Erven – Waterstof tanken op eigen erf, Stadsboerderij Almere (July 2026)
• Change Inc. – Almere krijgt eerste tractor op waterstof voor duurzame landbouw
• Trekkerweb / LandbouwMechanisatie – H2Trac sells first EOX hydrogen tractor to Stadsboerderij Almere (2021)
• Wageningen University & Research – H2Milkrun: perspectives for hydrogen production on the farm