Now that’s what you call luck. Right around the editorial deadline of our sister magazine HZwei, the German government debated, passed and presented its strategy to support the hydrogen and fuel cell industry.
Five federal ministries were involved in drafting the strategy. Their compromise agreement sets a 2030 target of “only” 5 gigawatts in installed electrolyzer capacity, not 10, as the German science minister Anja Karliczek strongly proposed.
California continues to move the needle in adopting more and more ambitious climate, energy and transportation goals, to improve air quality and reduce health impacts from emissions, and to develop a strong clean energy economy in the state that creates sustainable jobs.
Electric mobility represents an important contribution to climate protection and the use of renewable energies in the transport sector. VDE/ETG, VDI-FVT and VDI-GEU have therefore attempted to present the current state of development of fuel cell passenger cars (FCEV) and battery electric passenger cars (BEV) within the framework of an interdisciplinary working group made up of universities, research institutes and industry.
Not so long ago, CO2 certificates were still the epitome of a bureaucratic failure: Hardly anyone wanted them. They were introduced into the energy industry, but in a way that hardly allowed them to have any effect.
Hydrogen is an oft-discussed topic in and around Hamburg these days: In summer last year, the city became the birthplace of the Hydrogen Industry Network in Northern Germany. In November 2018, it was where the economy and transportation ministers of the German states on the coastline met for a conference on a joint hydrogen strategy for the region. H2-international talked to Heinrich Klingenberg, the network’s spokesman and chief executive of hySolutions, about the organization’s plans and the future role of the city.
A new study that claims battery-only vehicles to be cheaper and more economical than fuel cell vehicles has caused quite a stir in the electric transportation industry. On Nov. 14, 2016, the website of Stanford University showed a press release that made the headlines on several online portals. Reportedly, the main conclusions were that battery-driven vehicles could become cheaper than gasoline-powered cars from 2025 and that the ones running on fuel cells would require more than twice as much electrical energy. It was also noted that battery-powered engines reduced CO2 emissions at lower costs than fuel cell versions – particularly because of the infrastructure needed to produce hydrogen.
It has been four years since the start of the four German Electromobility Showcase projects. In 2012, they became the follow-up to the eight Electromobility Model Regions, across which electric engine technologies had been researched and developed. Before this demonstration and market preparation stage will ultimately be concluded at the end of 2016, the projects were discussed during an official closing conference
The biggest challenge of the energy sector transformation will be the spatial and temporal separation of production and consumption. Such a global issue may seem to require global or at least national solutions. The Energiepark Ewald study for the Hydrogen City Herten in Germany shows
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).
In May 2015, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) presented the long-awaited funding instrument for the market launch of fuel cell heating devices. As announced by Minister of Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, the market launch is to be supported via the so-called Energy Efficiency Incentive Program. The program is part of the National Action Plan on Energy Efficiency (NAPE), which was passed by the German federal government at the end of 2014. With other projects, it aims to contribute to a big improvement in the level of effectiveness in the construction sector. The package of measures has an annual funding volume