The European Commission has launched an initiative to support the development and commercialisation of fuel cell technologies and has committed EUR470 million over six years to the programme.
But the Joint Technology Initiative (JTI), which aims to commercialise fuel cells for stationary power applications by 2012-2015, has been criticised by industry groups for its lack of ambition.
The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen JTI is a public-private partnership that the Commission hopes will accelerate fuel cell and hydrogen technology commercialisation by overcoming barriers to development, stimulating additional research and building critical mass in the industry.
It will bring together public and private interests in a new industry-led structure that is required as the research needed to develop the technologies is too complex to be performed by one single organization, says the Commission.
While welcoming the JTI, industry association Fuel Cell Europe says that the level of commitment from the European Commission is not enough and will put Europe behind other regions in terms of the development and adoption of fuel cell technology.
“From an industry perspective we welcome this initiative, however as we have explained regularly over the past two years, we don’t think the European Commission’s commitment is matching the expectations and the magnitude of the opportunity offered by fuel cell and hydrogen technologies to address energy security and climate change issues,” said Marcus Nurdin, Honorary President of Fuel Cell Europe.
The original value proposition of the JTI – initially conceived five years ago – included greater financial support, less red tape, and a programme run by industry, says Fuel Cell Europe.
“The Strategic Research Agenda and Implementation Plan presented by the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform in 2006 and endorsed by the European Commission suggested that EUR7.4 billion of public and private resources are needed between 2007 and 2015 in order to put Europe at the forefront of the global competition in this field,” said Nurdin. “What we have obtained from the European Commission is less than EUR500 million and is essentially no more money than we had in the previous research framework programme.”
But the European Commission says that funding in this area has increased substantially and that better coordination of research and development will bring efficiency gains. It estimates that the activities of the JTI will help to reduce time to market for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies by between two and five years.
It will also raise confidence among investors and allow the industry to make long-term investment plans, says the Commission, which believes that fuel cells and hydrogen technologies could play a key role in achieving climate change and energy security goals.
The European Commission’s EUR470 million of funding must be matched by in-kind contributions from industry. The Commission will also share the programme’s running costs with industry.
In a statement Fuel Cell Europe notes that “industry is being asked to take a substantial financial burden to run the programme office and administrative costs, without getting anything in return … There is no guarantee that all the participating companies who are being asked to pay for this administration will benefit from the programme at all.”
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