Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Technology Initiative launched
Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Technology Initiative launched © European Commission 10 July, 2014

Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Technology Initiative launched

The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 (FCH2) Joint Technology Initiative (JTI), established under Horizon 2020, has been launched, together with other six public private partnerships.

The second generation of the FCH JTI aims to accelerate the commercial deployment of hydrogen-based energy and transport solutions across Europe through a total investment of €1.33bn. The projects under FCH2 will improve performance and reduce the cost of products as well as demonstrate on a large scale the readiness of the technology to enter the market in the fields of transport (cars, buses, and refuelling infrastructure) and energy (hydrogen production and distribution, energy storage and stationary power generation).

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, said: “The current FCH partnership has already put zero emission vehicles on the streets of a number of European cities, and installed heat and power units in people’s homes. The new programme will continue to deliver cleaner and affordable solutions for energy and transport. These are technologies that will not only reduce our CO2 footprint, but also reduce our energy dependence.”

With an indicative budget of €93m from Horizon 2020, the 2014 call for proposals will support 22 topics covering a broad range of applications. For example, one of the projects in this call aims to accelerate the deployment of fuel cells and hydrogen based mobility in Europe by rolling out at least 100 vehicles and 23 hydrogen refuelling stations.

Henri Winand, treasurer of NEW-IG, member of the governing board of the FCH2 JU and CEO of Intelligent Energy, added: “Fuel cells and hydrogen can help Europe address some of its biggest challenges: cut carbon dioxide emissions, deliver on the need of large scale energy storage, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and create jobs and growth. Now, our objective is to unleash this great potential. This important investment and new money will facilitate the entry of fuel cell and hydrogen into the market and for fuel cell and hydrogen based products and services to become an everyday reality sooner rather than later.”