The public's acceptance toward building a hydrogen fueling station near their residences: The case of South Korea

South Korea is pushing for advancing the emergence of the hydrogen economy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote economic growth. In this regard, a significant expansion of hydrogen charging stations is scheduled, but one of the biggest obstacles to this is the public acceptance of building a hydrogen fueling station near their residences. This article collected the data on the public acceptance toward building a hydrogen fueling station on a nine-point scale from a survey of 1000 people across the country, and analyzed the factors affecting public acceptance employing the ordered probit model. The respondents' approval rate for building a hydrogen fueling station near their residences (48.0%) was slightly higher than twice the opposition rate (23.0%). However, the sum of opposition (23.0%) and neutrality or indifference (29.0%) exceeded half of the total respondents, suggesting that the government's additional efforts were needed to improve acceptance. While some factors positively influenced the public acceptance, others affected it negatively. The various implications that can be obtained from these findings for building hydrogen fueling stations are discussed. (c) 2021 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

South Korea is actively promoting the development of the hydrogen economy, but public acceptance of building hydrogen fueling stations near residential areas poses a significant obstacle. Survey data shows that although a substantial proportion of the public supports the construction of hydrogen fueling stations, there is still a portion that opposes or remains indifferent, highlighting the need for the government to make additional efforts to improve acceptance.