While opening the debate, Marcus Nurdin, President of Fuel Cell Europe, re-iterated the importance of having the European Parliament taking leadership to ensure political commitment to fuel cell and hydrogen technologies at European and regional level.

He welcomed the Written Declaration initiated by MEPs Gurmai, Wijkman, Prodi, Guidoni and Turmes on “establishing a green hydrogen economy and a third industrial revolution in Europe”. Nurdin called on the European Parliament to “actively support the industry led Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) on fuel cells and hydrogen”.

Reacting to the presentation, Claude Turmes (Green, Luxembourg) supported industries’ views about fuel cell prospects for early markets such as portable power and light urban vehicles (scooters). He also mentioned CHP units and their advantage in delivering a greater share of electrical energy versus heat, compared to other cogeneration technologies. Referring to the JTI, Turmes questioned whether this would
not create a new very complex and bureaucratic European process to bring innovation to the market. He finally questioned whether hydrogen fuel cell technology was the best prospect for automotive applications.

Responding to Turmes’ comments, Klaus Bonhoff, DaimlerChrysler, explained that “while technology diversification is needed to handle upcoming transport challenges and while interim technology options such as hybrids and biofuels will be pursued, fuel cell hydrogen cars remain the best technology option to manage simultaneously energy efficiency, greenhouse gas reduction and oil dependency challenges in transport”. Bonhoff confirmed industry’s firm commitment to a JTI on fuel cells and hydrogen, considered as a unique mechanism that will guarantee risk-sharing, stable investment periods (10 years) and leverage of public and private funds. Bonhoff called upon the European Parliament to support the creation of the JTI as early as possible.

Giles Chichester (EPP, UK), President of the European Energy Forum, questioned industry on financing of fuel cells’ innovation and market introduction processes. 

Phil Doran, Core Technology Ventures, explained that, European innovative fuel cell startups were, on the one hand, faced to major challenges in getting access to equity (in the USA, for instance, venture capital companies are more active); on the other hand, these same companies are penalised by too weak public intervention mechanisms in Europe. These two challenges put European fuel cell companies in a difficult position in the global competitive environment. He compared this situation to the role of the US administration and its’ defence sector which invest massively in public procurements for fuel cell equipments; these interventions contribute to create necessary volume and technology maturing effects. Doran remained very optimistic about the industry prospects but urged European decision makers to work hard on these two aspects.

Stating “biomass is the best route for hydrogen production”, Vittorio Prodi (ALDE, Italy) asked industry to provide guidance on the best systemic approach to future sustainable energy infrastructures. Prodi called upon his MEP colleagues to further support “concrete early market applications such as hydrogen fuel cell buses, where great scaling effects can be achieved on costs once hundreds of units are being
produced”.

Michael Bode, CFC, explained that a “number of fuel cell stationary power plants were already operating in Europe on biogas, achieving up to 90% combined electricity and heat energy efficiency”. Bode acknowledged the very positive role of public incentives, and referred to the German government, because they help accelerate the introduction of fuel cell technologies. He invited European institutions to develop measuring tools for valuing greenhouse gas emission reductions that fuel cell systems can generate.

The evening ended on a very positive feeling from different parties; further cooperation projects are currently being discussed with some highly invested MEPs and substantial future developments will be reported on.

Interested readers can download the presentation and speech of Marcus Nurdin at:
www.fuelcelleurope.org

1 Hosted by the European Energy Forum in Strasbourg and sponsored by Fuel Cell Europe, the debate attracted 21 MEPs or assistants from various countries and political affiliations, fuel cell, nuclear and petrol industry experts as well as representatives from the Council of Europe and Member States. While invited the European Commission was unable to attend.