EHA in Action

The EHA and the European Industrial Gases Association, EIGA,  have prepared a joint position paper to ask the EU Commission for its consideration of the impacts of the current Seveso II Directive that dates from 1996 on to he commercial use of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier.   The  EHa and EIGA more specifically suggest that hydrogen be deleted from the list of specifically named substances in Annex 1 of the Direci, so that it is exclusively covered by the “extremely flammable” category.  Thresholds for hydrogen are currently 5 and 50 tons in the Seveso II Directive ; comparable to those of “Very Toxic” substances (5 and 20 tons). Even Chlorine has a  higher threshold of 10 tons, and those for “Liquefied extremely flammable gases (including LPG) and natural gas” are 50 and 200 tons.  At the current lower limit of 5 tons, road vehicle fuelling stations could fall under the scope of the Seveso directive, severely and unjustifiably compromising the development of the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure necessary to support the commercialisation of hydrogen vehicles projected from 2015 onwards, as indicated above. With the change proposed the lower limit for hydrogen would be raised to 10 tons in  the [...]

A draft plan of the Commission , sent to member states the last week of the new year , sets out the rules on allocating the 300 million allowances of the  ‘new entrants reserve’ of the EU ETS to CCS and renewable projects. At a carbon price of €20 a tonne, the revenue would amount to about €6 billion, the EU executive estimates. Todays carbon proices are around € 12. The draft proposes to award the allowances through two rounds of calls for proposals: in the first call mature projects, like CCS according to the commission, could receive funding.  The  impact assessment accompanying the draft argues that in the case of renewables, it would be “preferable” to wait until the second call to allow for a “maximum number of technologies to come to maturity”. However, the draft stresses that there should be a balance between CCS and renewable energy projects. It lists the technologies eligible to receive funding for at least one project in order to ensure that only technologies that are not yet commercially viable but ready for large-scale demonstration qualify. Each member state will be able submit two projects. The draft text requires member states to co-finance the projects by [...]

The last weeks of 2009 have been dominated by the developments in the UN Climate Conference COP 15 in Copenhagen during which fuel cell cars whisked delegates criss cross Copenhagen. Although the final outcome did not live up to the EU aspirations of 30 % emission reduction by 2015,   EU’s commitment of  €7,4  bln in the next three years (2,4 bln already this year!)  to support developing counties to reduce emissions  could become important also for our sector, especially in relation to development of new markets for low carbon technologies. In addition recent plans for an EU Electric Car Plan that will be unveiled by the Spanish presidency next month needs monitoring with regards to the support  of fuel cells cars as part of EU’s future electric transport ambitions.  Therefore the EHA is closely watching the nominations and final responsibilities of the new EU Commissioners who unfortunately will now only be officially nominated by the end of February not in time for this newsletter. The Commissioner designate  for Energy for example stated in his hearing in the EU Parliament that he will be responsible for all EU Energy Research, including the SET Plan..  As the Joint Undertaking for fuel [...]

Arnhem local authority, together with the Province of Gelderland, the regional authorities of Arnhem-Nijmegen, and the business sector, plan to invest 2.6 million euro in hydrogen-based urban cars and buses. All vehicles will eventually be refuelled at the first hydrogen filling station in the Netherlands. Experiments are currently taking place using a converted Subaru Impreza – rebuilt by students at HAN. However, the initiators of this project are also looking at Toyota Prius cars, as well as Mitsubishis and Fiats with electric motors and fuel cells. The fuel cell buses are already in production at the company e-Traction. Other suppliers, such as Hygear, Air Products and VéBé van Steijn are supplying the hydrogen pump installation for the filling station, the hydrogen generator to convert methane gas into hydrogen, and the safe transport of hydrogen from the generator to the fuel cell tank.

H-PAC programme aims at developing a French free carbon hydrogen and fuel cells production mainly for stationary applications. At mid-term, H-PAC will promote the introduction of hydrogen in the energy mix to play both a role as a clean energy vector in stationary systems and as storage of renewable energies (wind energy, photovoltaic). At long term, the goal is to introduce at large scale, fuel cells in power supply systems for transport. The program is based on three themes: -Clean production -Storage -fuel cells in experimentation (PEMFC, SOFC) In the framework, a call for projects is open to: 1)      Research project in partnership between research institutes and enterprises. 2)      Fundamental research to bring important technologic breakdown without necessarily partnership with a firm. The deadline for the submission of the applications is March 15 2010 at 1pm. More information here

At the occasion of the COP 15, Siemens presented the European Green City Index, a study on the environmental sustainability of 30 major cities in 30 European countries in which it emerges that Copenhagen is the “greenest” major city in Europe, followed by Stockholm, Oslo, Vienna, and Amsterdam. The evaluation of the 30 cities’ achievements and objectives in the area of environmental and climate protection focuses on eight categories: CO2 emissions; energy; buildings; transportation; water; air quality; waste and land use; and environmental governance. The eight categories are based on 30 individual indicators — 16 of which are quantitative (e.g. consumption of water and energy per capita, recycling rate, and use of public transportation) and 14 qualitative (e.g. CO2 reduction targets, efficiency standards for buildings, and support for environmental protection measures). “As far as possible, the research is based on data from official sources, such as municipal statistics departments and city governments,” said Watson. The study also includes in-depth city portraits that reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each urban center, while also highlighting initiatives and projects from which other cities can learn. “A key element of the study is the comparability of the results from each city — within [...]

After the deceiving non binding targets deal obtained at Copenhagen, EU officials tried to be rather optimistic and wanted to see the first step of a more ambitious agreement. They also pointed  to EU’s contribution of  €30 bln to a UN Technology Transfer fund to support developing countries to rapidly integrate emission reducing technologies. President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso considered that “This accord is better than no accord. This was a positive step but clearly below our ambition. So Copenhagen was, I think, a first step but we need many more steps in the future. And we, as the European Union, will pursue with our ambition”. He highlighted the importance that “we kept our commitment regarding the support to developing countries. Our African partners and others very specifically thanked us for that, because not all have contributed to what we believe is a very important obligation, which is the need to support the poorest, the most vulnerable in their fight against climate change”. Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of Sweden, the country holding the rotating E.U. presidency, was more pessimistic recognizing that the summit meeting had been a “great failure” partly because other nations had rejected targets [...]

Icelandic New Energy and Brimborg, Ford retailer in Iceland, have the pleasure of announcing still further steps in demonstrating hydrogen as fuel for transport; hydrogen which is made from water and renewable power from local resources. Ten Ford Focus FCV will be integrated into the traffic in Reykjavik in December 2009. These are all used fuel cell vehicles and the goal of this project step is to further test customer acceptance and endurance of the fuel cell technology. Since 1999 Icelandic New Energy has been acting as a facilitator to integrate hydrogen as fuel into society. Using electro-mobility is a natural extension of the local energy infrastructure, which runs entirely on renewable energy. Using local electricity to substitute for carbonated imported fuel has been a central policy of Icelandic government throughout the twentieth century and may lead to the benchmarking achievement in a country that has been highly dependent on the import of fossil fuels. Ford recognition of Iceland’s experience, research and skills in handling hydrogen is the key reason for testing the durability and further enhancement of mapping customer acceptance in Iceland. Shell Hydrogen in cooperation with Skeljungur have kept a commercial refueling station running for 6 years, with >98% uptime [...]

The level of innovation in regions varies considerably across almost all EU countries. This is one of the main findings of the 2009 Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS), published on 14 December 2009 by the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC), one of the seven institutes of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) together with the Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry and the Maastricht University (MERIT). This 2009 RIS provides a comparative assessment of innovation performance across the 201 regions of the European Union and Norway in order to inform policy priorities and to monitor trends. With respect to the previous report published in 2006, which used a very limited set of regional indicators, this report offers richer information to regional innovation policy-makers of more comprehensive and detailed, regional Community Innovation Survey (CIS) indicators. Despite this progress, the data available at regional level remains considerably less than at national level, and in particular four Member States – Germany, Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands – were not able to provide regional CIS data. Due to these limitations, the 2009 RIS does not provide an absolute ranking of individual regions, but ranks groups of regions at broadly [...]

The Third European Fuel Cell Technology and Applications Conference – Piero Lunghi Conference intends to bring together fuel cell developers, scientists, academics, policy deciders, as well as end-users and industry representatives, giving particular emphasis to operational experiences and applications. The conference will address technical, scientific and market issues related to successfully bring fuel cells to the market. To register click here