Elcogen will co-host an international seminar next week, discussing the role of fuel cells and hydrogen in Europe’s energy security.
Participants at next Wednesday’s event in Tallinn, Estonia, will discuss the latest developments in energy technologies and security, focusing on fuel cell and hydrogen advancements.
The conference: The Role of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology in Delivering Energy Security for Europe, will also be available online via webinar through the Elcogen website.
Elcogen is co-organising the conference, alongside its partners in the EU 7th Framework Programme IAPP ‘HELTSTACK’ project, including the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (NICPB) and Finnish technical research centre VTT.
Speakers include internationally acknowledged researchers and leading managers of technology enterprises. They will discuss the economics and benefits of future energy systems and latest technologies, as well as present practical examples.
Seminar organisers welcome anybody interested in the field to attend, including those from research organisations, private companies or public sector organisations and NGOs.
European Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking Executive Director Bart Biebuyck said:
“We need to become independent from unstable regions outside of Europe, and we have to speed that up as fast as possible because if it’s a case of someone outside of Europe just closing the pipelines or not supplying us with crude oil anymore then we have huge economic damage here in Europe.”
University of Birmingham’s Prof Robert Steinberger-Wilckens said:
“The main issue is energy imports which we have to get away from. Integrating more renewables is the key, with hydrogen being one of the options for storage.
“The other thing is the threat to infrastructure, whether that’s natural disaster or storms or malignant interference. In Germany there was a snowstorm, three or four years ago, and some parts of the country were without any energy supply for three weeks in winter.”
“In a case like Florida where everything is flooded, decentralized energy production could have helped – it makes the whole energy system much more resilient.”
Elcogen CEO Enn Õunpuu said:
“To be independent of imported primary energy we should increase local production, with wind power a very good example of that. Storage is still a challenge and, although batteries are seen as the main storage technology, fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells in particular are the most efficient technology for electrolyzing and storing energy in the form of hydrogen.”
Conference organisers were the partners of the ‘HELTSTACK’ project – under the EU 7th Framework Programme IAPP. Project partners included Estonia’s National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (NICPB), Finnish technical research centre VTT and Elcogen. HELTSTACK is working produce a novel 1 kW SOFC stack, together with the proof of concept of a 10 kW SOFC stack. The conference was also supported by the Estonian Academy of Science.
In attendance was Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director of the European Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCHJU), University of Birmingham Professor Robert Steinberger-Wilckens, Co-Founder of fuel cell company Convion Tuomas Hakala, and CEO of engineering firm NT BENE, Raigo Pert.