After a long wait, the European Commission has approved the first projects of IPCEI Hydrogen. With these Important Projects of Common European Interest, significant progress towards the establishment of a hydrogen economy is to be made. The associated special approval under EU state aid law means that much more funding can be allocated than would otherwise be permitted within Europe. Among the initial are four projects from Germany. More are to follow in the course of the year.On July 15th, 2022, Margrethe Vestager, vice president of the European Commission, announced the names of the approved projects for which the funding decisions are now being drawn up. This first wave of approvals, referred to as IPCEI Hy2Tech, involves technologies for the production, transport and use of hydrogen, particularly in the mobility sector. What they all have in common is that they go beyond the previous level of development and will generate significant momentum in the development of an integrated hydrogen economy in Germany and Europe. Following this technology wave is to be, still this autumn, an industrial wave with its additional projects, before the third wave for infrastructure and fourth for mobility come in. Altogether, 24 Member States of the European Union along with Norway are participating in IPCEI Hydrogen. Among the four just approved German technology projects are two that will furthermore receive funding from the German economic or, alternatively, transport ministry Sunfire1500, a project to create a production landscape to bring electrolyzers of alkaline (AEL) and high-temperature (SOEC) technology into series production, will receive such support. For this, Sunfire GmbH plans to build up production capacities in the state of Sachsen as well as some in Nordrhein-Westfalen, which are to serve as a blueprint for series production in Europe. As to the second project, namely BoschPowerUnits, Bosch intends to take the final R&D steps on the path to series production of its stationary solid oxide fuel cell systems. “Today, we have taken a big step forward on the way to the ramp-up of the hydrogen economy in Germany. The four projects from Germany are making an important contribution to the development of hydrogen technologies.”

German economic minister Robert Habeck

The German ministry for transport and digital infrastructure (BMDV) is funding the project NextGen HD Stack, in which EKPO Fuel Cell Technologies intends to develop a new generation of stacks and drive their commercialization forward. At the same time, the carbon footprint during the production of these stacks conceived for commercial vehicles, ships and trains as well as for stationary power generation is to be reduced.[…] … Read this article to the end in the latest H2-International Author: Sven Geitmann