Fuel cell systems are now ready for homes and businesses

Energy Fuel cells Electricity supply Energy efficiency

DTU and partners have in five years installed more than 1000 fuel cell micro-Cogeneration units all over Europe, having registered more than 5.5 million hours of reliable operation under the EU-project ene.field. The good results was presented yesterday in Bruxelles.

Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration is a home appliance simultaneously producing power and heat for your house or small business. The ene.field Final Dissemination Event, organized in partnership with the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), presented yesterday the key findings of ene.field project, and introduced the PACE project which builds on ene.field's success.

The wider energy industry and the research community and the EU, will have invested together more than €140 million in these projects by 2020. Both projects bring together major manufacturers from across Europe in a market development activity.

“Fuel cell micro-Cogeneration is reliable, it works and is now available in key European markets.” said Hans Korteweg, Managing Director of COGEN Europe, the coordinator of ene.field project.

“The ene.field project in particular has successfully installed and monitored more than 1,000 fuel cell micro-Cogeneration units, having registered more than 5.5 million hours of reliable operation. By learning the practicalities of installing and supporting a fleet of fuel cells with real customers, ene.field partners have taken a decisive step before manufacturers can begin commercial roll-out.”

Major European manufacturers, supported by FCH JU, EU and key European national governments, are now committed to bringing the technology closer to mass market by increasing scale and achieving further product cost reductions.

"We are approaching mass production and the continuation of ene.field will focus on getting product capacity up to take advantage of the experience and get better and cheaper facilities"
Eva Ravn Nielsen, Center Manager, DTU Energi

“We are approaching mass production and the continuation of ene.field, the EU-project PACE, will focus on getting product capacity up to take advantage of the experience and get better and cheaper facilities”, said Center Manager at DTU Energy, Eva Ravn Nielsen. DTU Energy, DONG and Ballard Europe were the Danish contribution to ene.field.

The next project PACE will enable manufacturers establish Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration as a standard technology by installing more than 2,500 units across Europe.

Over the past five years, the EU co-funded ene.field project has deployed and monitored over 1,000 new installations of residential Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration across 10 key European countries. It represents a step change in the volume of fuel cell deployment for this sector in each country. By learning the practical implications of installing, operating and supporting a fleet of fuel cells with real world customers, ene.field has demonstrated the environmental and economic imperative of Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration, and laid the foundations for market exploitation.

The final dissemination event also highlighted the need to develop the right policy framework to encourage wide deployment of this technology in Europe. Achieving the EU climate and energy transition will depend on enabling a mix of technologies to work together and complement each other. Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration provides a unique combination of heat and power and the existing policies tend to treat these two elements separately and differently, and cannot adequately deal with a combined device. Therefore, a policy framework should be developed which creates a level playing field where renewables, decarbonisation and efficiency can be delivered across different technologies and energy vectors (e.g. electricity, heat, gas).

Key policy recommendations are available in the ene.field Policy Report published today.