EU Raising Stake in Fuel-Cell, Hydrogen Technology

Automakers have been asked to bid for financing from the second phase of the European Union’s fuel cells and hydrogen  joint undertaking, which will sink €1.33 billion ($1.8 billion) into hydrogen-based energy and transport-fuel technology until 2020.

Coordinated by the EU's executive body, the European Commission, the research scheme will see the EU contribute up to €665 million ($900 million) to projects, leveraging at least that amount from private sources. Brussels has launched this phase’s first call for formal proposals for financing. These, the EC says, will improve fuel-cell performance, reduce costs and demonstrate market-readiness.

Joint undertaking board member Henri Winand says the money will “facilitate the entry of fuel cell and hydrogen into the market and for fuel-cell- and hydrogen-based products and services to become an everyday reality sooner rather than later."

The undertaking brings together expertise and finance from Europe’s automotive, energy and research sectors, combining it with EC budgets and experts, in a formal research-funding organization. It is a successor to the scheme’s first phase, which was launched in 2008 and received €470 million ($636 million) from the EU.

That money was funneled through the EC’s Seventh Framework Programme, its general research budget, which wound up in December 2013. It was replaced by Horizon 2020, the EC’s current research budget, which runs to 2020 and will supply the bulk of EU funds spent by the fuel-cell undertaking’s second phase.

However, because this is a private-public partnership, funding decisions under the fuel-cell program will be taken by a governing board of research specialists and representatives from the EC, the automotive sector and the energy industry. This includes Georg Frank, senior manager- fuel-cell advanced engineering and research at Daimler; and Gaelle Hotellier, executive vice president and head of hydrogen solutions at engineering giant Siemens.

Looking at the undertaking’s detailed calls for proposals, projects range from mobile fuel-cell technology development to the rollout of refueling infrastructure.

One example is a €93 million ($126 million) project that aims to standardize components for cost-efficient transport-based fuel-cell systems. An undertaking memorandum on this project notes while fuel-cell technology for vehicles is ready, it often is too expensive for mass-market sales. It blames “proprietary system architectures and component concepts, too low volume and lack of a competitive chain of suppliers.”

Standardizing interfaces and components might reduce costs and hasten the adoption of fuel cells in Europe’s auto market by helping build a solid supplier base, the memorandum says.

Infrastructure Target of One Project

Basic improvements to fuel-cell technologies are the focus of another €93 million project requiring applications for research funding. The memorandum for this project explains, “Technology assessments suggest that there are still considerable potentials for improvements in terms of functionality, efficiency, manufacturability and cost for automotive application.”

This project is looking for advancements in air-cathode/exhaust modules, anode modules with recirculation, the air-humidifier and -processing unit, plus auxiliary components such as valves, sensors and interfaces for reactant loops and thermal-management systems and components.

Still another new project is a €93 million scheme for financing large-scale demonstrations of hydrogen refueling infrastructure. It would involve rolling out at least 100 hydrogen-based vehicles and 23 refueling stations.

One key aim, according to a project note, would be aligning these projects with existing national or regional programs to install refueling stations “to underpin the early stages of these initiatives and further stimulate hydrogen infrastructure’s build-up across Europe.” The plan is to build links between these systems so their operations can be compared and benchmarked, easing future expansions of interoperable networks.

“Large-scale demonstrations of this type are essential to gain real-life operational experience, test the attractiveness of (fuel-cell vehicles) for customers and subsequently develop a matching customer-value proposition and best business-case scenarios,” the project note states.

Other programs involve developing technology for large-scale bus refueling, new hydrogen refueling components and hydrogen-storage standardization.

Commenting on the latest launch, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU commissioner for research, innovation and science, says: "The current (fuel-cell and hydrogen) partnership has already put zero-emission vehicles on the streets of a number of European cities, and installed heat and power units in people's homes. The new program will continue to deliver cleaner and affordable solutions for energy and transport.”