On 15 September, the village of Vestenskov on Lolland, the fourth largest island in Denmark, took a step closer to becoming Denmark's first hydrogen community, when Queen Margrethe opened the hydrogen supply from a central electrolysis plant to five test houses.

Each house has a hydrogen-powered fuel cell module installed, which will supply heat and electricity. The project is part of Lolland's aim to become a European role model for full-scale hydrogen technology implementation.

In May 2007, Lolland opened Denmark's first full-scale hydrogen-energy plant and testing facility, which converts surplus wind energy into hydrogen via electrolysis* of water. This has been used to test fuel cells and a range of equipment in what is called phase I of Hydrogen Community Lolland. Phase II will begin on 15 September when the five houses start using hydrogen fuelled micro-power and heating units. Based on the acquired knowledge from this phase, the project will enter phase III in 2-4 years when 35-50 houses will have hydrogen fuelled micro-power and heating units installed.

Leo Christensen, project manager in Lolland municipality told Børsen: "Lolland has one of the strongest electricity grids in the country, and the wind turbines we have here produce more than twice as much power as we can use. So it is natural that we are focusing on how we can store the clean energy from the wind turbines, thereby exploiting the energy even better. The hydrogen project in Vestenskov is a good example of this."

A number of companies have invested in the project including Danfoss, Dantherm, Haldor Topsøe, IRD, Powerlynx, DONG and COWI, as well as the Finance Committee of the Danish Parliament and Lolland municipality.