This summer car manufacturer BMW presented a new vehicle driven by a fuel cell. In Miramar in the south of France, the Bavarian company revealed their new BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo (GT) on the first of July 2015. The car is a showcase vehicle, which was developed in cooperation with Toyota and is planned for mass production by 2020.
The Hydrogen Information Truck H2M, a tractor-trailer, began its road tour through Europe in Italy in spring 2015. The tour’s starting location on April 20 was the Italian parliament; the final destination was Paris at the end of 2015.There, the truck advertises for sustainable environmental policies during the UN Climate Conference (COP 21).
Since summer of 2012, Roland Käppner had been President of McPhy Energy Germany. At the beginning of 2014, he also became Vice President of McPhy Energy S.A. In July of last year, the French company announced that it would collaborate with British corporation GKN on the development of solid-hydrogen storage systems. This August, Käppner changed jobs and has since managed business development as Global Director Hydrogen at GKN Sinter Metals, a GKN subsidiary. Peter Oberparleiter, CEO of GKN Powder Metallurgy, said:
Fuel cells are considered to be all-round talents. That is why their use in the maritime sector is being continuously tested out. Until now, however, a successful breakthrough is yet to have occurred in this field. Nonetheless, as before, a variety of companies are trying to gain a foothold in this challenging area of potential application
Intelligent power networks and smart grid systems are demanding increasingly decentralized technologies that combine the storage and conversion of energy. Before this backdrop, in the scope of the EU’s CISTEM project (Construction of Improved HT-PEM MEAs and Stacks for Long Term Stable Modular CHP Units), a combined heat and power technology (CHP) has been developed on the basis of high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (HT-PEM FCs), which is able to provide an electrical output of up to 100 kWel. In addition to electricity generation, the heat produced by the HT-PEM fuel cell is used locally
The political statements are now being trotted out on an almost weekly basis. This should come as no surprise, since more power-to-gas projects are now starting than ever before. We repeatedly hear things like “PtG technology has the potential to lead the energy transition to success.” Such statements were to be heard most recently, for example, at the commissioning of the facility in Ibbenbüren and in Mainz, and also at the initialization of the project in Solothurn, Switzerland.
Numerous European countries are working hard – to a greater or lesser extent – in the field of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. Since 2006, one region has been particularly active: South Tyrol. In September 2009, in Bolzano, Italy, the ground-breaking ceremony was held for the construction of the first production and distribution system for green hydrogen in the country. The site adjacent to the Bolzano South freeway exit is now home to the biggest center for hydrogen in Europe, which is operated by the Institute for Innovative Technologies (IIT) and the Brenner A22 freeway. H2-international interviewed IIT President Walter Huber about the previous, current and future activities in South Tyrol.
On 21st May 2015, the first hydrogen filling station opened in Tyrol, Austria. The new station, on the Andechsstrasse in Innsbruck, is situated on one of the most important transit routes in Europe and is part of an existing OMV crude oil filling station at which it will be possible to refuel six fuel cell cars per hour with hydrogen in the future. On the occasion of the official opening, Austrian State Minister Patrizia Zoller-Frischauf made the following comment: “As a heavily used transit country which has to deal with CO2, particulate and noise pollution, we view an emissions-free
In Switzerland, the initial trials for the development of an infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles are now underway. At the start of April 2015, a consortium of companies announced that the first public hydrogen filling station is to be built in early 2016. The fuel to be used there is to be produced sustainably using hydroelectric power. For this purpose, the energy services group Axpo, one of the biggest producers of renewable energy in the Alpine state, is planning to construct an electrolyzer directly adjacent to one of its existing run-of-the-river power plants. The hydrogen
So that additional FC heating devices go into use throughout Europe, work is currently underway on a successor program to the currently existing ene.field project. Its goal is to achieve a further reduction in the costs of micro-CHP units (of approx. 30%). The new program aims to constitute the second demonstration step for manufacturers of all types of FC. To this end, financial resources in total of approx. EUR 30 to 40 m. might be provided by the EU so that every manufacturer is able to