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Overview 
Press Releases 
| Media | Event Report |
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Well here we are again. Hall 13, Hannover Messe. The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Group Exhibit now tops 150 companies from some 25 different countries and with meeting rooms, news desk and networking area it takes up a very sizeable chunk of the Energy Hall. Unlike most other events in the fuel cell calendar the Hannover show is a trade fair. Somewhere to do trade. This places it in the same stream as the Fuel Cell Expo in Japan and is the only one its kind outside of Asia. So with this in mind we decided this year to focus on what kind of trade you could do here. First off , footfall. As with any other event getting the right people through the doors is key. Let’s be honest numbers can, and often are, padded with groups like students but for a trade fair enabling business requires getting the right people to attend. After having spoken with a number of other regulars and for our own experience it is clear to say that 2008 saw a jump in quality of attendance. The four key differences we saw from the visitors were that in general they were: 1. educated on the fuel cell and hydrogen industries Moving on from footfall to exhibitors. If there is nothing to sell then how can anyone buy anything? Even just two years ago it was something of a challenge to find any actual products on sale. This year we made a quick list of what you could actually buy at the Fair, a metric of the level of business that can be done. The list included: • 6 kW rack mountable UPS system The final draw is the companies who are exhibiting. Is there a breadth and depth of companies? Is the supply chain represented? Are there any obvious gaps? As usual we spend a lot of time talking to the companies exhibiting gathering information on their activities. So in no particular order here is a summary of the many mini-interviews and chats that we had: Helbio (Greece) is a small company working on hydrogen reformers. They themselves are part of the larger Morphic Group of companies which now owns as well Helbio, Cell Impact and Exergy. Helio produces the fuel flexible reformer and buys fuel cell stacks from Exergy which they integrate into a near market ready product. At present the companies marketing material indicates units for off -grid applications (interesting tie with the trends identified in this years Small Stationary survey) and the possibility also of a marine unit. A company to watch. Within a few minutes of arriving at Hall 13, Jon ran into Bac2, the UK bipolar plate manufacturer. Bac2 are going through a very exciting time at present, having shipped samples of their electro-conductive polymer-graphite plates to around 20 companies. The firm are currently concentrating on manufacturing small bipolar plates for portable devices, including rechargeable electronic gadgets and, intriguingly, remote CCTV. The company also manufactures larger bipolar plates, which are likely to be used for portable applications, including by the military, in future. The company has recently discovered some novel properties of its proprietary Electrophen conductive composite material, and is in the process of filing patents for the discoveries. Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, who hit the news recently when they signed a deal with model car manufacturer Corgi to co-develop their latest-generation fuel cell toy car, the H2Go. The company was recently one a winner of the 2008 Toy Award and also has teamed up with Wa Shing Toys, one of China’s biggest toy manufacturers to manufacture its fuel cell toy cars. The H2Go features a remote control system, steerable wheels and an on-board storage system allowing the car to move around independently of the refuelling station. This feature, allowing ‘continuous play’ is expected to be a big hit with children and adults alike. Horizon and Corgi are hoping to launch the RC car in September, in time for the Christmas toy market. The previous generation H-racer has sold in large numbers – we estimate above 10,000 – and the revenue derived from this is being channelled not only into a new generation of fuel cell toys but also into projects as diverse as fuel cell aircraft, fuel cell bikes, portable and stationary power. Of these, the company recently demonstrated its fuel cell powered unmanned aerial vehicle which flew 125 km on a quarter tank of hydrogen - a new record. Another promising development is the portable ‘Hydropak’ which works on a dry hydride fuel to which the consumer ‘just adds water’. This portable power system is being aimed at the marine sector, particularly at liferafts where the Hydropak can be activated using seawater. Plug Power have a newly developed high temperature PEM (utilising a polybenzimidazole membrane) fuel cell system on display and are currently debating whether they should integrate this into the home fuelling station concept they have been developing with Honda over the last few years. Now in its 4th prototype development stage Plug Power believe it is ready to be integrated into the home and it is just a question of when. StatoilHydro and Linde, both companies have made a business of supplying hydrogen to a wide range of businesses and from what we have been told, they are hedging their bets on hydrogen refuelling stations being the next big growth area. But perhaps the most interesting insights into the hydrogen fuelling debate came from a fuel cell company that is new on the scene, Brian Tian and Shi Tao from Pearl Hydrogen in Shanghai, believe the breakthrough to the chicken and egg scenario could come from China. With the large number of bicycles in Shanghai and the way their existing gas distribution system works, Shanghai could be distributing hydrogen in canisters to up to 100,000 cyclists in the next 3 to 5 years.
Chris Curtis, vice president of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Canada, is one of the industry’s stalwarts who have seen the good, bad and ugly that this industry regularly produces but still works flat out to try and make the whole thing viable. Chris was at Hannover to promote not just the trade organisation but also next years international conference in Vancouver (www.hfc2009. com). FutureE are a small team that worked in Ballard (Germany) for a number of years left to form the new venture. Using Ballard stacks the company produces 2 – 10 kW backup power units for the telecommunications industry. Jupiter, as the unit is called, will be available to select customers from October 2008 with a potential global roll out later next year. The unit has impressive performance statistics with the team employing its unique knowledge base to employ non-stack based techniques to reduce unit degradation. The next steps for the team are to produce a 1 kW unit for base stations that run off electrolytic hydrogen using renewable energy and potentially longer term for off -grid homes. Topsoe Fuel Cells are one of the many companies exhibiting here for the first time. The company has an impressive stand for its pre-commercial SOFC units. At present the company not only produces SOFC stacks with a current capability of 5 MW per annum (just for R&D and demo projects) but also its own reformer and a system with reformer, stack etc engineered together. The units are being targeted at three main applications, small stationary for homes, APUs for trucking and large stationary units in conjunction with Wartsilia. Interestingly was the mix of policy driven and commercial driven markets that the units will be used in. For example the APU in trucks market is policy driven as now in the USA it is forbidden to have trucks idling overnight creating a market for electricity and heat producers that can, initially at least, run off diesel. Residential though is at present commercially driven with the number of replacement boilers each year in the EU running into the multiple millions. The next five years will see the company make a number of business critical decisions on issues such as when to go commercial and how many components apart from the stack to carry on producing in- house. Fuel cells in aircraft may seem like a distant prospect, but their near-term potential has recently been demonstrated by Intelligent Energy’s test flight of a fuel cell powered plane, and also the ongoing work by the German Aerospace Research Center (DLR) focused on fuel cell APU for aircraft. The DLR has been working with Airbus on putting a 20 kW unit into an A320 to power emergency systems such as pneumatic pumps and hydraulics. These fuel cells can be retro-fitted into existing aircraft and the DLR is looking at the business case for doing this in the period 2012-13. Longer term, the DLR hopes to develop a commercial multifunction fuel cell system that will not only provide onboard power for hotelling loads, but also provide fresh water for toilets and to humidify the air conditioning system. The timescale for development of this system will be dependent on the timescale of the next generation of aircraft but, given the setbacks inherent in bringing a new aircraft to market (witness the delays with the Boeing Dreamliner and A380), this is likely to be some way in the future. More immediately, the DLR has a real value proposition in developing SOFC based APUs for vehicles and is working with BMW in bringing these to top-end vehicles. Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), another German research institute which is doing some very interesting work with DMFC fuelled materials handling vehicles. FZJ has a class 3 materials handling vehicle (a small pallet truck) powered by a 5 kW DMFC on display on their stand, developed in conjunction with Junheinrich. This is currently being trialled in various warehouse locations in Europe, including in a Tesco warehouse in the UK. Although FZJ’s primary focus is on R&D, the organisation is very interested in getting demo, and ultimately commercial, units out in the field and anticipate demand of thousands of units per year in the next decade. There is certainly a massive potential market for FC powered materials handling vehicles (for projections, refer to Fuel Cell Today’s 2008 Industry Review) and DMFC powered units have the advantage of simplified refuelling requirements of hydrogen fuelled systems. However, DMFCs are generally limited materials handling applications with lower power requirements (up to 5 kW, that is Class 3 materials handling vehicles) and there is still some way to go on durability, lifetime and integration with hybrid powertrains. Nedstack, the modular PEM stack manufacturer:- one thing that stood out was that their 5 kW stacks now come with a small CE certified sticker on them– a small point but a very important one in that codes and standards are finally catching up with the technology and easing the way for further consumer acceptance. The great beauty of the Nedstack units is that they are modular and any number of them can be put together depending on the power requirements of a particular application. For example, Nedstack units are currently being used in Mitsubishi Canter trucks, where 3 stacks provide 15 kW of power for the vehicle. At the other end of the scale, Nedstack’s modules are currently being used in parallel in a 1 MW PEM powerplant in the Netherlands. The possibilities are seemingly endless, and Nedstack are ramping up production to the order of thousands of units over the next couple of years. Another thing that was seemingly endless was the 26m long bendy bus that Nedstack showed me a picture of. This giant, capable of seating 120 passengers (and up to 300 with standing room) is being developed with 120 kW of Nedstack modules as a demo project in Amsterdam and should be launched in mid 2009. As ever, while this is an important demo project, it would be more encouraging if fleets of these buses, rather than one-offs, were being procured. Acta make catalysts for fuel cells and have now branched out into electrolysers. Traditionally alkaline units have had the majority share of the electrolyser market with PEM units starting to come through over the last few years. Companies such as Acta are leading an alkaline fight back, in this market at least. The new twist for the company is its recent start of the promotion of Ammonia as a rich hydrogen carrier. Whilst some wince at the idea of using Ammonia, after all it is toxic, Acta have, they claim, come to the conclusion that in terms of efficiency it is the best fuel for their product. Their sweet spot is the development of an electrolyser that functions in a system where ammonia is produced as a waste product, in one go turning to a problem into a benefit. Guido Gummert from Baxi Innotech put together a very eloquent case for the need to work together in the soft infrastructure areas to allow any chance of market diffusion of residential fuel cells when they are ready. Issues such as installation training, house design and codes and standards need to be sorted if fuel cells for the home in any other country that Japan and Germany have a chance to diffuse. Baxi is not just developing fuel cells but a range of mCHP products but they do see in many cases fuel cells being the best option. Driven by carbon reduction legislation due to come out of the European Union in 2012 homes will need to reduce their carbon footprint. Baxi’s test fuel cell have shown a per home reduction of 30-50% running of a natural gas in a not fully optimised system. This current unit produces around 1 kWe and 6 kWth. 2010 will see the release of the next generation of unit. Hexis are also looking at the residential market with 2011 / 2012 commercialisation. The company produces its one stacks and catalytic POX reformer technology integrating it into a 1 kWe unit (22 kWth, with back up burner) for a single family home. Hexis is also developing units to run of Natural Gas and sees central Europe as its initial market. In the coming year we will see the launch of a new large scale field test and a new funding round for the company. Up until very recently information on IRD technology was as rare as hens teeth. Based in Denmark the company is now starting to come out of the shadows with its DMFC and PEM technology. The reason for the reticence was explained by the companies CEO as simply not wanting to talk about products until they were ready to sell. With some high profile investors and a clear focus on stationary power development the company will see a number of installations over the coming period. As well as the stacks and other components IRD also supply fully integrated systems to such projects as the Lolland community and units for datacentres.
Nordic Power Systems is taking something of a stand alone position developing diesel reformers and diesel based fuel cell systems. The initial technology was developed in the University of Aachen and acquired by Nordic Power Systems which has been prototyping the unit since 2006. With an assembly plant under construction and funding being speeded up the company is looking to have a busy year. Also by the end of 2008 should see the launch of a integrated system with the Nordic Power System diesel reformer and a high temperature (250oC) PEM. “Innovation Alley” “Innovation Alley” is the term we have given to one stretch of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Group Exhibit. Starting at Antig the Alley goes all the way up to the booth for the Lucerne SOFC conference. This straight stretch of smaller booths is populated in the main with highly innovative SMEs which are here to promote their ideas and products. A quick count sees some 22 companies in the Alley with 4 providing systems, 9 component suppliers, 1 stack manufacturer, 5 testing and modelling companies and two which can only be described as none of the above. Starting with Antig from Taiwan they have on display their fuel cell “blade” and their portable unit which starts shipping this year. As we covered their activities in depth earlier the year the Fuel Cell Expo we won’t go into them here. Once it does start shipping its product then Antig will become one of only a large handful of companies globally that can truly say that are commercial.
Variex are another of the many supply chain companies that are reporting growth. These guys are happily reporting a near doubling in sales in Q1 of 2008 as opposed to the whole of 2007 with a projected 10 fold increase by year end. Impressive! The company produces compressors and blowers for the fuel cell industry and is now, that the product specs are there, is focusing on tooling, manufacturing and making sure the costs come down. When I spoke with them they even hinted at some forward procurement orders. Now that is good to hear. Perma Pure represent another piece of the supply chain with its humidifier product. Only one of three companies that produce humidifiers that can deal with all qualities of hydrogen the company claim to operating in a sweet spot in terms of cost and quality and are now actively working with companies in the fuel cell forklift grouping. The company is bullish enough now about the fuel cell markets to project a x12 increase in revenue from the sales of hydrogen humidifiers in the next four to five years. Nice to know that people agree with us when we say that the next 5 years, maximum, should see a real growth period in the industry. NDC is an interesting proposition and showcases exactly what the Alley is about, SME who are here to get people looking at what they can do. At Hannover the company is showcasing three of its products, two commendably compact PEM stacks at 2.5 and 15kW respectively and a mini ethanol fuelled, alkaline catalyst based passive fuel cell that is being initially targeted at the personal electronics industry. Known as EOS the units are the size and roughly double the depth of your average credit card but can, they claim, power a PDA type device for up to 12 hours. The beauty of the design is that spares can be carried in your wallet as easily as your AMEX card. Going forward the company is looking for partners to work with to further develop the EOS technology and continue to manufacture the stacks for increased market applications. Ballard Materials, a daughter company of Ballard Power Systems, were are the fair to launch their new product – a nonflexible, molded graphite diffusion layer. Sounds sensible considering the habit of flexible GDLs to sit in places they shouldn’t. Shanghai Pearl Hydrogen, an interesting company based out of China, who are marketing their range of fuel cell powered electric bikes in the UK under the name Pearl Hydrogen UK. The Mark 2 fuel cell bike is due to be launched in China in the next few weeks, and it won’t be long until they make it over to the UK. I got the chance to ride one of their fuel cell powered bikes in Cambridge earlier this year and got the feeling that this could make a massive contribution towards clean personal transportation not just in China but in cities around the world. Stuart Jones from ABSL Power solutions, another business exhibiting in Innovation Alley, took the time to talk to me about fuel cell use in military applications. Currently portable fuel cell power packs to replace battery technology become weight effective once the mission length becomes greater than 24 hours, explains Stuart. In addition to improving the power density the challenges facing ABSL’s system are similar to those that are being faced by most in the industry including getting the stack started below minus 20 degrees Celsius, reducing the start up time to under 10 minutes and meeting military heavy rain testing standards. However there is light at the end of the tunnel for ABSL, their next generation unit has addressed these issues and 10 units will be tested by the UK military in February 2009. Component manufacturers have been conspicuous at this year’s show, particularly in Innovation Alley with SEAL being one of these, making fuel cell materials including gas diffusion layers and high temperature membrane support layers. They have been producing specialist textiles for the chemical industry for over 70 years and specialise in coating materials for use in high and low temperature fuel cells. They are currently ramping up production to produce continuous rolls of gas diffusion membranes for customised fuel cell applications. As the fuel cell industry’s demands for components grow, companies like SEAL are set for an interesting future. Many companies, many products. Who was missing? The automotive industry was obvious by its absence though with the focus of the Group Exhibit being clearly on trade then this would not sit as easily as some other companies. Also some a number of companies that were there such as Acumentrics and Smart Fuel Cell did have stands but not in the Group Exhibit. Was it worth the trip? Yes. What would we like to see next year? Maybe some form of colour coding for the companies so that for visitors it would be easy to identify supply chain, stacks, systems and also companies that have products to sell. A minor change but something that would help to streamline the process of visitors finding the right companies to talk to. Apart from that the Group Exhibit really shows the steps forward that this industry has taken from concept to reality.
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