The past year was a year of many milestones and important announcements accelerating the deployment of the use of hydrogen and fuel cells systems in Europe’s transport and energy grid:
Firsts this year came from France, registering the first fuel cell vehicles registered on French roads, from Slovenia, opening its first station and from Italy, which held its first Stati Generali dell’idrogeno in Rome on December 13, 2013 receiving the support of two ministries to put hydrogen back on the Italian agenda…
Two million km were completed by the fleet of 100 fuel cell vehicles of the Clean Energy Partnership in Berlin. Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell, Ford Focus Fuel Cell, Honda FCX Clarity, Toyota FCHV-adv, Opel HydroGen4, VW Tiguan HyMotion, Audi Q5 HFC and Hyundai ix35 vehicles also reported no major incidents since 2005….
Three hundred million Euros will be the cost of a specific action plan for the construction of a 400 hydrogen refueling station network in Germany by 2023. The plan was announced by six partners in the “H2 Mobility” initiative – Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde, OMV, Shell and Total – 3 of which are members of the EHA, and marked the first alternative fuel infrastructure investment announcement of industry as requested by the Commission in its Clean Power for Transport Communication (COM2013/17) in January of this year…..
99% is the availability of the hydrogen refueling stations at the depots of the fuel cell bus operations in the CHIC project that has put 40 fuel cell hybrid buses on the roads in 5 cities and regions across Europe: London is the frontrunner with 7 buses in regular service across the centre of London….
100 kudos to all colleagues in industry and EU, national and local government level that are making this happen….
Looking forward to a happy and successful collaboration in 2014!
A lovely holiday season from the EHA Brussels team.