Fuels Cells: is Europe able to compete?

Speaker: Mr Marcus NURDIN, Managing Director of the World Fuel Cell Council and Fuel Cell Europe

Invited Academic Expert: Prof. Dr. Jürgen GARCHE

The fuel cell is a technology able to simultaneously address the problems of environmental degradation (CO2 and toxic emissions) and energy security associated with growing energy demand.

Today, its development is driven by international competition prompted, in particular by ambitious programmes.

After a brief overview of the fuel cells technology, Prof. Dr. Garche outlined the present state of technical maturity of the various industrial uses. On his part, Mr Nurdin described the major programmes in place in US, Japan, and China in comparison with the European Union and the implications for accelerating market development and investment in production. He also told us that a number of utilities and local authorities see a significant perspective to provide a complete energy service, including CHP, to residential and commercial customers.

A series of questions fed our discussion, for example: 
• Is Europe able to compete on the international market? 
• What is the role of the public sector? 
• What amendments are needed to the EU Cogeneration Directive?