Racing around the track in small-size H2 cars might look like fun, but it has a serious purpose. An event like this is designed to impart crucial engineering know-how, prompt design ideas, solve technical issues, encourage improvisation and, most of all, promote deep immersion in a new technology. This and much more is being offered at competing events such as the Shell Eco-marathon and the Formula Student.
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