Current Situation

The continuous decarbonisation of energy vectors and the need for efficient conversion processes and flexible energy storage will increasingly favour the usage of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The widespread adoption of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies will support the broader utilization of otherwise lost renewable energy, in particular sun and wind. Most of the accepted strategic documents support this expectation. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), for instance, recognizes in its European Road map for Research Infrastructures (Report 2006) that "in the near future, hydrogen, as an energy carrier derived from a number of other fuels, and fuel cells, as energy transformers, are expected to play a major role, for both mobile and stationary applications".

However, hydrogen technologies including fuel cells currently do not reach the required cost and performance targets for an immediate and broad market introduction. Some safety aspects are still unresolved and public acceptance needs wider and more consistent information. A number of these issues are partially addressed by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), which mainly supports the demonstration of the currently available technologies. The implied (by the JU establishment) rearrangement of the European funding strategy is expected to positively stimulate the greater involvement of industry and commerce in the field. However, as the current state clearly shows and the demonstration efforts also highlight, there are still major open issues requiring further investigation. Thus much additional research work, both on the fundamental and applied levels, needs to be done. Without this research and development, the prospect of commercial success is pushed further into the future.

Objectives

The main objective of H2FC European Infrastructure is to generate a structured and integrated alliance based on complementary, state-of-the-art, or even beyond state-of-the-art unique infrastructures to serve the needs of the scientific hydrogen and fuel cells community and facilitate future research. In more detail, H2FCEuropean Infrastructure general aims can be summarised as follows:

• To provide a single integrated virtual infrastructure to accommodate hydrogen and fuel cell communities’ test and analysis facilities.
• To provide transnational access for the hydrogen and fuel cell research communities to member state infrastructures.
• To create a number of expert working groups to enhance work at the provided facilities and to seek more general coordination in the aspects safety, performance and durability.
• To provide central databases and libraries of safety, performance and durability data and modelling codes.
• To coordinate relevant education and training, pertinent to the set-up, use and maintenance of hydrogen and fuel cell research, test and assessment facilities.
• To integrate, enhance and improve on the existing infrastructure.
• To coordinate actions with national and international bodies, with academic and industry demands.
• To complement the Joint Undertaking activities and facilitate tackling major research and development relating bottlenecks in the field.