Belgium

A combined density functional theory and molecular dynamics approach is employed to study modifications of graphene at atomistic level for better H2 storage. The study reveals H₂ desorption from hydrogenated defective graphene structure V₂₂₂ to be exothermic. H₂ adsorption and desorption processes are found to be more reversible for V₂₂₂ as compared to pristine graphene. Our study shows that V₂₂₂ undergoes brittle fracture under tensile loading similar to the case of pristine graphene. The tensile strength of V₂₂₂ shows slight reduction with respect to their pristine counterpart which is attributed to the transition of sp2 to sp3-like hybridization. The study also shows that the V₂₂₂ structure is mechanically more stable than the defective graphene structure without chemically adsorbed hydrogen atoms. The current fundamental study thus reveals the efficient recovery mechanism of adsorbed hydrogen from V₂₂₂ and paves the way for the engineering of structural defects in graphene for H₂ storage.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are zero tailpipe emission vehicles. Their large-scale deployment is expected to play a major role in the de-carbonization of transportation in the European Union (EU) and is therefore an important policy element at EU and Member State level.<br/>For FCEVs to be introduced to the market a network of hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS) first has to exist. From a technological point of view FCEVs are ready for serial production already: Hyundaiand Toyota plan to introduce FCEVs into key markets from 2015 and Daimler Ford and Nissan plan to launch mass-market FCEVs in 2017.<br/>At the moment raising funds for building the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure appears to be challenging.<br/>This study explores options for financing the HRS rollout which facilitate the involvement of private lenders and investors. It  presents a number of different financing options involving public-sector bank loans funding from private-sector strategic equity investors commercial bank loans private equity and funding from infrastructure investors. The options outline the various requirements forn accessing these sources of funding with regard to project structure incentives and risk mitigation. The financing options were developed on the basis of discussions with stakeholders in the HRS rollout from industry and with financiers.<br/>This study was prepared by Roland Berger in close contact with European Investment banks and a series of private banks.<br/>This study explores in details the business cases for HRS in Germany and UK. The conclusion can be easily extrapolate to other countries.

This report provides an outlook for jointly achieving a commercialisation pathway.<br/>Building on the findings of the 2012 FCH JU technology study on alternative powertrains for urban buses this report provides an assessment of the commercialisation pathway from an operational perspective. It reflects the actual situation in which operators deploy large scale demonstration projects in the next years from a rather conservative angle and argues why it makes sense to deploy FC buses now. The insights are based on first-hand data and assessments of the coalition members from the hydrogen and fuel cell industry as well as local governments and public transport operators in Europe.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) are developing quickly from passenger vehicles to trucks or fork-lifts. Policymakers are supporting an ambitious strategy to deploy fuel cell electrical vehicles with infrastructure as hydrogen refueling stations (HRS) as the European Green deal for Europe. The hydrogen fuel quality according to international standard as ISO 14687 is critical to ensure the FCEV performance and that poor hydrogen quality may not cause FCEV loss of performance. However the sampling system is only available for nozzle sampling at HRS. If a FCEV may show a lack of performance there is currently no methodology to sample hydrogen fuel from a FCEV itself. It would support the investigation to determine if hydrogen fuel may have caused any performance loss. This article presents the first FCEV sampling system and its comparison with the hydrogen fuel sampling from the HRS nozzle (as requested by international standard ISO 14687). The results showed good agreement with the hydrogen fuel sample. The results demonstrate that the prototype developed provides representative samples from the FCEV and can be an alternative to determine hydrogen fuel quality. The prototype will require improvements and a larger sampling campaign.

In the sixth episode titled Exploring Opportunities for EU-Canada Hydrogen Cooperation our CEO Jorgo Chatzimarkakis discusses with John Risley Charmain and CEO of CFFI Ventures and Stefan Kaufmann former Innovation Commissioner for Green Hydrogen of the German government and now adviser to Thyssenkrupp. In the discussion about hydrogen market and technology's development in Canada and in Germany the businessman and the policy advisor bring two different geographical and expertise perspectives about the topic. Taking into consideration the US' IRA Canada's investments in the hydrogen sector and the European plans regarding H2Global and the Hydrogen Bank our guests compare North America and the EU. They debate over the economic and financial support the industry needs to invest in the green energy transition and the role global cooperation and competition play.

From navigating the rainbow of colours to the lack of consensus in establishing a common taxonomy the labelling and definition of green or renewable hydrogen presents a growing challenge. In this context carbon taxonomy is understood through five critical aspects: carbon intensity temporal and geographical correlation additionality of renewable energy generation and different system boundaries in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This study examines the effect of carbon taxonomy on the design and operation of Power-to-Gas (PtG) systems for renewable hydrogen production including the electricity supply portfolio via Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and grid-connected electrolysis. To this end an optimisation model combining energy system modelling and LCA is developed and then applied to a case study in the Japanese context. The importance of the PPA portfolio in securing cheap and low-carbon electricity to produce hydrogen is addressed. To support this evaluation process an eco-efficiency metric is introduced and proved to be a comprehensive tool for evaluating renewable hydrogen production. Regarding carbon taxonomies the findings emphasize additionality as the key determinant factor followed by temporal correlation and the definition of carbon intensity thresholds. The application of a cradle-togate LCA boundary influenced the cabron intensity accounting playing an unexpected role on the design and optimal PtG dispatch strategy.

Purpose: The technology and market module of the FCHO presents a range of statistical data as an indicator of the health of the sector and the progress in market development over time. https://www.fchobservatory.eu/observatory/technology-and-market Scope: Fuel cell shipment data is presented on a global basis. Other sections of the technology and market chapter (HRS data and FCEV data) are presented on a European basis. The report spans January 2020 – December 2020. Key Findings: COVID-19 has without doubt impacted the deployment of fuel cells and hydrogen in 2020 compared to industry expectations: Global Fuel Cell shipments > 1.3 GW Europe Fuel Cell shipments up to 148.6 MW Europe HRS in operation or under construction 162 FCEVs up 41% to 2774

Purpose: The policy module of the FCHO presents an overview of EU and national policies across various hydrogen and fuel cell related sectors. It provides a snapshot of the current state of hydrogen legislation and policy. https://www.fchobservatory.eu/observatory/policy-and-rcs/eu-policies https://www.fchobservatory.eu/index.php/observatory/policy-and-rcs/nationalpolicies Scope: While FCHO covers 38 entities around the world due to the unavailability of some data at the time of writing this report covers 34 entities. The report reflects data collected January 2021 – May 2021. Key Findings: Hydrogen policies are relatively commonplace among European countries but with large differences between Member States. EU hydrogen leaders do not lag behind global outliers such as South Korea or Japan.

With the adoption of the EU Climate Law in 2021 the EU has set itself a binding target to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2030. To support the increased ambition the EU Commission adopted proposals for revising the key directives and regulations addressing energy efficiency renewable energies and greenhouse gas emissions in the Fit for 55 package. The heating and cooling (H&C) sector plays a key role for reaching the EU energy and climate targets. H&C accounts for about 50 percent of the final energy consumption in the EU and the sector is largely based on fossil fuels. In 2021 the share of renewable energies in H&C reached 23%.

Hydrogen is commonly used as feedstock in industrial processes and is regarded as a potential future energy carrier. However its reactivity and low density make it difficult to handle and store safely. Indoor hydrogen dispersion can cause a fire or explosion hazard if encountering an ignition source. Safety practices often use time expensive modelling techniques to estimate risk associated with hydrogen. A neural network based surrogate model could efficiently replace Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling in safety studies. To lower the dimensionality of this surrogate model a dimensional analysis based on Buckingham’s Pi-theorem is proposed. The dimensional analysis examines stratified filling and highlights the functional parameters involved in the process. Stratified filling occurs for buoyancy dominated releases and is characterized by layers of decreasing concentration starting at the ceiling of the enclosure and developing towards the bottom. The study involves four dimensional cases that were simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed dimensionless time and dimensionless volume. The setup considered in this paper consists of a parallelepiped enclosure with standard atmospheric conditions a single release source and one pressure outlet to ensure constant pressure during the release. The results of the CFD simulations show a distinct pattern in the relation of hydrogen molar fraction and dimensionless time. The pattern depends on the dimensionless height of the measurement location. A five-parameter logistic (5PL) function is proposed to fit the data from the CFD models. Overall the paper provides insights into the functional parameters involved in the evolution of hydrogen mass fractions during stratified filling. It provides a nondimensional surrogate model to compute the evolution of the local concentrations of hydrogen during the development of stratification layers.