The event will take place on 9^th of February 2012 in the premises of the FCH JU Programme Office, avenue de la Toison d’Or 56-60, Brussels.

The FCH JU will introduce the day in a Public Information Session on the 2012 Call for proposals (to be published mid-January). The session will cover the topics of this year’s call, processes, rules for submission of proposals as well as other useful information for participants.

The day will then continue with a Brokerage event co-organised by the Industry Grouping (NEW-IG) and the Research Grouping (N.ERGHY) of the FCH Joint Undertaking. Sessions will be organised by application areas and topics in order to facilitate concrete discussions and targeted networking. Each specific topic of the Call for proposals 2012 will be discussed twice to allow participants to take part in all discussions of their interest.

Draft programme:

Your participation in the event will give you the opportunity to: 

Discuss your projects ideas

Find potential project partners

Develop your proposal

Build or join a consortium

Receive information and advice

Enlarge your network

In addition, members of NEW-IG and N.ERGHY are invited to:

Bring posters presenting their project ideas or organization/company

Consult profiles and other participants and summaries of project ideas on IG/RG Intranet prior to the event

Registration:

The event is open to all interested parties free of charge.

Attached you may find the registration form for participation to the event. Form may be sent to events@fchindustry-jti.eu by 3 February 2012 at the latest. 

The Workshop will run between 9am and 4.30pm (Central European Time) in Budapest and will be available for live broadcasting to anyone interested.

You can stream the workshop live by clicking here.

You can get access to the complete program by referring to the downloads section of this post.

HyPaC and the “Association Française de l’Hydrogène” (AFH2) will mutualise their efforts to accelerate the hydrogen and fuel cell technologies’ deployment in France in a new strong national structure which will federate the hydrogen and fuel cell community in France.

In this aim, the “Association Française de l’Hydrogène” becomes the “Association Française pour l’Hydrogène et les Piles à Combustible – AFHYPAC” and follows the same goals as HyPaC.

AFHYPAC will send in September a “call for membership” to all French companies involved in the field of hydrogen energy. It will be supported by the French governmental institutions. AFHYPAC will hold its first General Assembly at the autumn 2011.

The HyLIFT-DEMO project will conduct a large scale demonstration of Fuel Cell Hydrogen (FCH) powered FLTs (Fork Lift Trucks), while building the business case to enable following deployment and introduction by 2013. This first small scale series production of FLT will seek to validate the value proposition and commercial and environmental targets by retrieving the data provided by the demonstration operation.

The project will hold a two year demonstration of 30 units of 2.5-3.5 tons FLTs with fully integrated 3^rd generation fuel cell systems, and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure at 3 end-user sites throughout Europe.  In addition, accelerated laboratory durability tests will be conducted on FC systems to validate life time and sensitivity shock, vibration and climate exposure, reaching 4.000 hours in laboratory.

Website: www.hylift.eu

In this effort, HyFACTS is currently researching the current practices, and suggestion of stakeholders in the fields of regulation and public safety. An online survey has been created which participants may review and submit the appropriate data on the authorization procedures and training of officials in your designated country or region. (See: “HyFACTS Survey on authorization procedures and format”). The survey has been created using an online questionnaire tool.  By clicking on the title you will be redirected to take part in the survey.

Under the HyFACTS project training courses are planned for testing the new teaching-material. In order to show our appreciation for your efforts, selected interviewees that have shown their interest in replying to the survey will be chosen to take part in the test-courses.

An increasing number of upcoming installations of hydrogen-related technologies are foreseen in public areas, companies, universities, research centers, fairgrounds, and harbor sites etc. In filling in and submitting the survey participants may assist HyFACTS and European Public Authorities in the preparation of the deployment of these technologies.

See downloads for presentations from the full day of events.

With the opportunity, EHA was present and took the opportunity to ask the panel of speakers of the EU’s plans to address the changing demands in the new innovative job markets. Employment of European Youth also deals with as mentioned the concept of employability, thus having the skills needed for the job market. As electric transport and infrastructure are developed in Europe, specialists in Hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell installations will be needed to fulfill demand in human capital thus, training our youth in such technologies can play a key role in preparing them for future job demands.

“How is the EU preparing today for the jobs of tomorrow?”  EHA took the opportunity to also introduced the European funded project, HyPROFESSIONALS, which aims to develop and disseminate training initiatives for technical professionals and to develop a well-trained work-force which will secure the required mid- and long-term availability of human resources for hydrogen technologies.

Director for Life Long Learning, horizontal policy issues and EU 2020 Strategy, Pierre Mairesse, responded to the question in expressing the difficulty in predetermining the optimal skills needed new sectors in the future job market, however the European Commission is proposing to put in place an initiative that will review European sectoral skills. this effort will be in collaboration with the European trade unions.

Overall we have seen that European projects, such as HyProfessionals, will play an integral role in presenting future labor market demands, and preparing the labor market for the challenges ahead in fulfilling them.

The event provided for a great opportunity to stimulate the Greek Hydrogen Community and thus communication has begun to extend the EHA network to include Greece. In a meeting dedicated to the Greek Hydrogen Community, discussions took place in order to re-unite a platform for the representation of the Greek Hydrogen industry and research players.

Interest has also been expressed of local and regional players to taking part in deployment of hydrogen in transport and stationary applications.

The overall conference had a particular focus of interest to researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners working in the field of hydrogen production technologies, ranging from policy making and technical development to management and marketing.

The forum provided an exchange of latest advances and technical information, dissemination of new research developments in the areas of hydrogen production and usage and presentations involving the future directions and priorities in the hydrogen economy for a sustainable future.

The 2011 International Conference on Hydrogen Production is organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, by the Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute (CPERI/CERTH).

For more information on this event see: ICH2P 2011

The group has been able to submit strategic input to the new White Paper on transport, adopted March 28, 2011 and will submit a road map with recommendations on policy next measures in October 2011.

The Expert Group on Future Transport Fuels shall, on the basis of existing and new studies.

1. Assess market potential, technological issues, economic viability, industrial implications, social and demographic aspects, environmental impacts, and safety, of the different fuelsconsidered as part of a long term oil substitution for transport fuels

2. Systematically consider factors that could affect long term viability of alternatives –including security of supply, availability of feedstock, resources required for the fuel chain

3. Design scenarios towards full substitution of fossil energy sources for transport fuels

4. Devise a development and field testing programme and identify needs for public support

5. Recommend actions and policy measures towards full substitution of oil as transport fuel.

The following Research and Innovation areas are being considered

1. Transport and IT systems

2. Smart systems /infrastructure : intelligent hubs

3. Safety security

4. Sustianale alternative fuels including infrastructure

5. Urban mobility

6. Clean and safe and silent modes

7. Exploratory and strategic issues

The STTP will deal with transport technology in a holistic way, which means that it will also take into account the social, environmental and institutional context in which the technologies are applied. The STTP will include roadmaps for each of the leading-edge technologies identified, which will cover the full “innovation chain”. It will help to facilitate coordination of public and private research and innovation efforts across Europe. The  STTP consultation deadline is May 28, 2011. More information on the STTP website