Mobile applications

New member of Clean Energy Partnership from Japan

On March 5 the Japanese car maker Toyota joined the Clean Energy Partnership. The new member is another strong partner and enhances the international importance of the CEP. Toyota will contribute five fuel cell hybrids FCHV-adv into the partnership until 2011. Then more than 40 cars by six companies are on the road in Berlin and Hamburg without emissions. Toyota and the other CEP partners strive for the establishment of a sustainable society including hydrogen technology and for paving the way into an age of sustainable mobility.

(CEP press release of March 5, 2010)

Closing conference on ZEMships

14.000 passengers have made a tour on the river Alster with FCS Alsterwasser, the first passenger ship running on fuel cells. Since 2008 she made 430 trips over the Alster amounting to about 2500 km without emissions. Gabriele Müller-Remer, who is running the operator company ATG, said: „For ATG the two year test phase was a full success. This technology has a future. The project has also created an interest in succeeding activities.“

Zemship (Zero Emission Ship) is a joint project of eight partners under the leadership of the environment authority of Hamburg. A closing conference was held in Hamburg on April 20 to consider the results and to evaluate them from the point of view of the partners. The partners showed themselves very interested to continue the project. (hySolutions press release of April 20, 2010)

P.S.: On April 28 a fire in a Hamburg shipyard damaged the Alsterwasser considerably. First reports say that the origin of the fire was in the battery compartment. The fire service extinguished the fire before the hydrogen tanks were damaged. Nobody was hurt.

Stationary applications

Renewables and hydrogen for Greenland

The first hydrogen plant on the basis of renewable energies started operation on March 22 in Nuuk, the capital of the island. Power supplier Nukissiorfiit intends to learn how to store renewable power using hydrogen under Greenlandic conditions. Around 60% of the energy that Nukissiorfiit produces today for the entire country comes from hydro power. With a continuous increase of production capacities of hydro power plants in combination with an aim for hydrogen and fuel cells, it may in long term be possible for Nukissiorfiit, to completely avoid use of diesel for electricity and heat production. Further the hydrogen can be used as fuel for the transportation sector and with the excessive potential for hydro power that the country posses, export of hydrogen may be a long term opportunity.

(H2Logic press release of March 22, 2010)

Asia aims at the European market

Due to intensive government support Japan has made a lot of progress in the development of fuel cells for private homes. 5000 small cogeneration plants are now running in Japanese houses. Now the companies aim at the European market. The electronics company Panasonic is in negotiations about this with the European Commission. Korean companies are part of it. The companies say that the consumer would save some 25 % of energy costs with such a device and reduce the CO₁ emissions of his home by 2.5 t per year. The lower operating costs would balance the higher investment after a few years.

Investment costs are not such a problem in Japan because the government funds 50 % of it. Together with other incentives the costs for the customer are about 8 k€. Further price reductions, which everybody expects, would also further enhance the popularity. Rising production numbers would let the prices drop further. But for the time being the capital costs are still the highest hurdle.

(BBC News, 12. March 2010)

Infrastructure

First CO₂ neutral filling station of the world at Berlin airport

A hydrogen filling station will be part of the future Berlin airport BBI. This will be the first totally CO₁ neutral filling station of the world. This is made possible by a wind part close to the airport. This power will not only provide zero-emission power for the filling station, including hydrogen production on site, but the amount of CO2 saved in comparison to conventional power production is so high that it completely offsets the indirect emissions produced by the conventional fuels which are also sold at the station. The start of building the filling station and the wind park will be in June 2011, start of operation in October 2011, along with the airport as a whole.

(Press release of March 4, 2009)

More filling stations world wide, and also in Germany

18 new hydrogen filling station started operation in 2009 in the world. The total rose to 206. We have now 70 in Europe and 92 in North America. 108 more are now planned. The website H2stations.org shows all operating and planned hydrogen filling stations in the world on interactive maps. The database is kept up to date and contains detailed information about each station. On the map of Germany 25 operative stations could be seen in 2009, and ten more are to come soon. In Europe as a whole – including Germany – nine stations were opened last year, and eight in North America.

(Press release by TÜV Süd of March 19, 2010)

General

Hannover 2010: Iceland could not spoil the mood

Iceland, the forerunner in terms of using hydrogen energy, disturbed this year's joint presentation „Hydrogen and Fuel Cells“ in the frame of the Hannover Fair. The closing of the German airports kept not only some exhibitors away, but apparently also many foreign visitors. Quantity suffered a bit, and not only here, but on the fair as a whole. But the quality was as high as always.

For the 16^th time the joint presentation was the meeting point for companies and research. 141 exhibitors from 22 countries presented themselves on Europe's largest hydrogen and fuel cell exhibition. On the open ground in front of the hall fuel cell driven vehicles and scooters could be seen. Fair guests cound drive them on an area of 8.000 m².

Proton Motor Fuel Cell GmbH, Puchheim, showed a city bus which usually circulates in and around Prague. It uses a combination of fuel cells, batteries, and super capacitors. During braking translational energy is converted to electricity and stored in the batteries. The bus is filled up with 20 kg hydrogen gas under 350 bar. Filling takes less than 10 minutes. The range in city traffic is more than 250 km per filling. This technology saves more than 50 % of energy in comparison with conventional Diesel buses.

Small generators on fuel cell basis are already in the market, for example for mobile homes or police or ambulance vehicles. The EFOY fuel cell by SFC, Brunnthal, provides a reliable power supply over days also in a standing vehicle as long as methanol is available. The cell produces also heat for the battery and the compartment, which is a bonus in the winter. But you can also use LPG. Truma Gerätetechnik from Putzbrunn presented a reformer - fuel cell- system. The electrical power is about 250 W. A common 11 kg LPG cylinder can generate 28 kWh of electrical power. This is enough for a self-sustained power supply for days or even weeks.

A similar device for camping and outdoor activities comes from Dresden. The Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS presented for the first time the eneramic® fuel cell system running on common LPG. The system comprises a high temperature fuel cell (SOFC). The average power is 100 W, enough for most typical camping devices. It has about the size of a shoe box and a weight of 8 kg; so it can be carried easily. Fixed installation in mobile homes or caravans is also possible.

Experts from Research Center Juelich have extended the life time of fuel cells. They developed a way to make 20.000 operating hours possible, almost three years. This is equal to the life of a bus or four times the life time of a car. Not before this time a loss of performance of 20 % is expected, something which is generally considered as the end of a fuel cell life.

Research news

Invitation to Essen

A first class conference program is promised by the organizers of the World Hydrogen Energy Conference to be held from May 17 to 20 in Essen. DWV is co-organizer of the conference which is supported by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia by means of the EnergieAgentur.NRW. Not to be neglected is the by-program.

The „Public Day“ on Sunday, May 16, provides a chance to see fuel cell technology in action. A shuttle service from the fair to the Baldeneysee will be provided.

Monday, May 17, will offer a trip through the world of hydrogen technology for pupils and teachers in the frame of a „School and Teachers' day“. Experiments and discussions with experts will be possible.

Selected researchers will be available for students on Tuesday, May 18, to discuss the state of the art and to report about their work. There will also be a job and information exchange for students.

(Press release by EnergieAgentur.NRW of March 24, 2010)

DWV innovation award

The winners of the DWV innovation award this year are Dr. Jens Franzen from Kirchheim unter Teck and Alexander Lieb from Überlingen (Lake Costance). In both theses problems were investigated which are important when you produce products in great numbers. Matters like this are important for the market introduction.

Dr. Franzen investigated in his Ph. D. theses the storage of hydrogen in the complex hydride Sodium Alanate (NaAlH₄) with respect to mobile applications in a car. The experimental results were the basis for a numerical simulation. A complete set of model parameters for NaAlH₄ and Na₃AlH₆ for absorption was obtained. The model permits an easy way to investigate the influence of parameters like density and temperature distribution.

Fuel cell stacks must be kept together with a high mechanical pressure to provide tightness of the system and electrical contact of its components. Increasing pressure reduces the electrical resistance of the interfaces (positive) but disturbs the gas flow (negative). Alexander Lieb developed an experimental device to determine the contributions of the various components to the total electrical resistance. A theoretical modelling and a FEM analysis were done on top. The precision of the experimental results made a high precision of the theoretical model possible. Promising directions for further optimization of PEM fuel cells were indicated.

The awards will be presented in the afternoon of June 15 on occasion of the annual meeting of DWV members in Herten.

Small is beautiful

Catalysis is a surface process. The finer you distribute the catalyst the more active it is, because yon need less of it. Researchers of TU Berlin and colleagues from the USA have deciphered the operation of a new catalyst which they say may reduce the amount of platinum in a fuel cell by more than 80 %, with corresponding effect on the costs of fuel cells. They generated spherical catalyst particles with a diameter of a few nm comprising a copper nucleus and a platinum shell only a few atom layers thick. The platinum atoms are very close to each other which generates mechanical tensions. This makes the particles better catalysts than pure platinum. They could also show that the tension and thus the activity of the catalyst can be tuned arbitrarily. This is a way to optimize the catalyst.

(Press release by TU Berlin of April 27, 2010; paper will be published in the May edition of Nature Chemistry)

Energy and Climate

Let's wait and have a green tea

On March 11 Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, and Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru) announced the creation of a consortium to introduce uniform standards for charging electrical cars. The biggest Japanese energy provider Tepco is also part of the joint venture. The alliance will install a network of charging stations and sell the technology abroad. 158 further companies and state institutions like power providers, international car makers, charging device makers etc. are expected to join soon. Some of them are foreign companies like the French car maker PSA (Peugeot, Citroën), Bosch, and the Italian energy provider Enel.

The unsolved problem of long charging times for battery cars may have been the background for the name of the project: Chademo. It stands for the English words „Charge“ and „Move“, but it is also short for „O cha demo ikaga desu ka.“ This is Japanese for: „Let's have a green tea (while the car is charged).“

Further Reading

The Hydrogen Society – More Than Just a Vision?

by A. Evers, 180 p. with numerous photos and diagrams; Hydrogeit Verlag, Oberkrämer, April 2010; ISBN 978-3-937863-31-3, price: 34,50 Euro

1995 the author founded the joint presentation „Hydrogen and Fuel Cells“ on the Hannover Fair. During the past four years he collected material to clarify questions like: how does the energy balance of the world or of Germany really look like? How and why did the situation become that serious? How can hydrogen be generated meaningfully and sustainably?

The book is targeted at young people whose commitment is indispensable for the realization of a hydrogen society. And it is also meant for hydrogen and fuel cell insiders who want some neutral information.

What else we have found ...

Relativity according to Reitzle

„When you calculate the costs for a hydrogen infrastructure for Germany you get three billion Euro. A state owned bank will dump this amount during one morning.“

(Linde head Wolfgang Reitzle on March 16 in Munich during a press conference about the future prospects of his company in a comment about the comparatively low costs for the installation of a hydrogen filling station network for cars)