Rob Castien, CEO of Resato Hydrogen Technology, received a hydrogen medal from Erwin Jongh (Zero Emission Champion Toyota Netherlands) and Marit Bouwmeester at the New eMMergy event.
Rob Castien
After his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Rob remained fascinated by high-tech engineering and production challenges, preferably in international environments. In the Drenthe company Resato International, of which Rob became director and owner, these domains merged smoothly.
In the years that followed, Rob's innovative and business-thinking led to a steady growth of the Drenthe-based company, which today focuses entirely on sustainable technology, with a heavy focus on hydrogen. With its hydrogen refueling stations, Resato wants to actively support the mobility sector in the accelerated transition to an emission-free future.
Resato International
Resato was one of the pioneers in building cutting machines using high-pressure technology. The competencies of working with extremely high pressure soon proved to be an excellent basis to start working on the development of its own line of hydrogen filling stations.
As of 2016, Resato therefore brought its own hydrogen filling station into production, the first market version of which was installed in 2016 at the company Holthausen in Hoogezand. These still small-scale filling stations offered Resato a springboard for the further development of its technology towards the first large public hydrogen filling station in The Hague. This filling station, which was officially inaugurated in 2021, already supplies around 500kg of hydrogen daily to cars and cabs, among others. This makes it one of the most widely used filling stations in Europe, with proven very high reliability.
Gradually, this technology has been honed further and further and now the consumer can fill up a passenger car at Resato's hydrogen filling stations in just over three minutes. And this with more than 30 cars in a row, without breaks.
Meanwhile, the hydrogen filling stations of Resato Hydrogen Technology can be found in Groningen, Alkmaar, Dordrecht and Oude Tonge, among others. But Resato is now also gaining a foothold outside the Netherlands, with filling stations in Belgium, Sweden and Germany. We think that Rob Castien's unstoppable drive is the determining factor in this.
Besides public filling stations, Resato also offers (small-scale) filling stations for own use on company premises, also in lease constructions. These filling stations are considerably cheaper than the public versions, but fill up more slowly. The incompany filling stations are thus extremely suitable in the transition route from limited refueling volumes to the hoped-for upscaling, and eventually to increasingly larger public stations. The existing company filling station can then be completely reused at other locations.
The technical innovative strength and knowledge of business concepts make the Resato technology accessible to small and larger companies, thus making a relevant contribution to the desired hydrogen transition. The technological knowledge and service orientation of Castien and his team is widely praised. The fact that Resato also actively tries to create as many partnerships as possible within its own northern region is another aspect that appeals to the jury.
Meanwhile, the hydrogen division of Resato Hydrogen Technology already counts some 85 FTEs, making it one of the jewels in the crown in the Northern Netherlands. But at least as important for the Mission H2 jury: Resato's hydrogen stations now form an indispensable link in the chain of both light and heavier hydrogen mobility. For us all reason to award this golden hydrogen plaque to Rob Castien.