“Why not trying to be among the first this time?” asked prof. Eden Mamut, Secretary General of Black Sea Universities Network introducing  the initiative Romanian Hy-Ways, that will connect the Black Sea Region to the hydrogen refuelling networks currently being developed in Germany, UK, France Scandinavia, Netherlands, Switzerland. The Black Sea Region, with a population of over 300 mln people is home to abundant renewable sources (wind energy rose from 92 to 3.000 MW in 5 years). Prof. Mamut highlighted the hydrogen and fuel cell expertise in Romanian universities that could feed and support the roll out of hydrogen and fuel cell  applications. The initiative was presented at the first H2 and FC Brokerage event on March 12, 2013 at the Poly-technical University of Bucharest. One of the first actions of  the initiative will be to transfer knowledge from universities to companies ,as well as to link Romanian companies interested in H2 and FC technologies with EU initiatives. At the event Romanian organisations presented proposal ideas:
– Metal-hydrides (Petru Instititute of Material Sciences);
– Low temperature steam reforming of ethanol (Oil and Gas University Ploiesti,
– H2SouthLink, HRS network from Vienna ot Bucharest (University of Bucharest) ;
– Microbial Fuel Cells, University of Bucharest
– Clean Energy Tours, FC buses and HRS,  University of Bucharest.

The EHA was invited to talk about the role of national associations and local communities in the roll-out of hydrogen  infrastructure.