ARTICLE IN PRESS

Energy 34 (2009) 327333

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

International overview of hydrogen and fuel cell research$

H.-J. Neef 
Project Management Juelich (PtJ), Research Centre Juelich, D 5245 Juelich, Germany

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 6 February 2008
Available online 2 October 2008

Increasing environmental problems, limited fossil resources and the geopolitical dependence on crude
oil are enormous challenges for our societies. According to energy experts from all over the world, fuel
cell and hydrogen energy technologies will play an important role in the portfolio for a future energy
economy. This is particularly true for the transport sector which is marked today by an extreme
dependency on oil. Hydrogen needs to be produced cost-effectively and with zero or near-zero CO2
emissions. Fuel cells, with their high electrical efciencies and clean exhaust energy conversion, have
the potential to produce excellent solutions to the ecological and economic problems provided that
their development is pursued in a determined way and that their market launch is prepared.
Based on experiences and results from intensive R&D and demonstration programmes in the last
decades, regional, national, European and international efforts are underway to overcome existing
bottlenecks through efforts reaching from fundamental research to market introduction instruments.
The problems still to be solved are manifold: cost reduction for all components and systems of a
hydrogen economy, performance improvements, manufacturing technologies, infrastructure development, international agreements on codes, standards and regulations, and many more.
& 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies

1. Why new energy technologies and why hydrogen and fuel cell
technologies<
The battle for oil is in full swing. No country in the world
imports and consumes as much oil as the United States. Western
Europes dependency on oil imports is increasing. The booming
economies of China and India demand more and more new energy
sources and import more and more oil. Japan, with its shortage of
raw materials, competes in the race for resources. Russia fears for
its reputation as a reliable gas and oil supplier. The Middle East is
the worlds fuelling station and powder keg at the same time.
The world is scared of climate change. Fighting it has become a
top priority of the rich countries and the less developed countries
have recognised the problem to be a threat, while the poor
countries have different priorities. But nobody has developed a
comprehensive approach to addressing the difculties of climate
change.
Since the 1970s, the industrial countries have been developing
new energy technologies in both national and international

$
The manuscript is based on a presentation at the International Workshop
Advances in Energy Studies, Porto Venere, Italy, September 2006 (http://
www.unisi.it/eventi/ades/portovenere.html). The author retired from PtJ in 2007
and is now advisor to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Network, North Rhine
Westphalia.
 Tel.: +49 241 997 3963.
E-mail address: neef.aachen@t-online.de

0360-5442/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2008.08.014

programmes to meet these challenges. They have been taking on

a whole portfolio of topics, ranging from nuclear fusion to the
energy saving lamp (Fig. 1). This broad basis of energy technologies is needed and a balanced energy mix to ensure that energy
supply is secure and compatible with the protection of the
environment. A lot of new energy technologies have found their
way into the energy market on their own or with government
support or regulation. One of the technologies that still need to
prove its capability to contribute to the energy market is related to
hydrogen and fuel cells. The point here is to develop marketable
products.
Finding a place in the energy market also involves competitive
advantages, chances for growth and export potentials for the
respective country or region. This corresponds to key political
goals, a more robust economy, new jobs and more R&D where the
markets are particularly favourable for innovations.
Why should hydrogen and fuel cells be part of the portfolio of
energy technologies? How can they contribute to a balanced
energy mix<
Can hydrogen contribute to balance the energy mix and to ease
the dependency on energy imports< Like electricity and heat,
hydrogen can be produced from a variety of primary energies.
Consequently, if it would be possible to develop a cost effective
and environmentally friendly way to produce hydrogen from
fossil, renewable and nuclear energy carriers, this would already
be one important step forward. If hydrogen could then even be
used in the transport sector, this would be a further step in the

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H.-J. Neef / Energy 34 (2009) 327333

Fig. 1. Sustainable development.

Fig. 2. Fuel cell types under development.

right direction and the dependency on oil would decrease. The

precondition is, however, the availability of marketable technologies for the production, distribution and use of hydrogen.
There are several technologies to use hydrogen: the combustion engine, turbines and some fuel cell types (Fig. 2). What
advantages does the fuel cell have compared to competing
technologies in the application elds of transport, residential
energy and industrial use for electricity and heat production?
Regarding road transport, vehicles with a fuel cell, an electric
drive train and a hydrogen tank are being developed today. The
benet over vehicles run by diesel or petrol for combustion
engines consists of higher efciencies and zero-emissions. With
the exception of NOx, this is also true for combustion engines
running on hydrogen.
Fuel cells in the stationary sector, i.e. for residential energy and
for industrial application, will use different fuels and convert
them into hydrogen in situ as long as there is no hydrogen
infrastructure in place. In the case of low temperature fuel cells
a reformer is used that converts natural gas into hydrogen
and CO2, for example. High temperature fuel cells can convert
the fuel, e.g. biogas, internally. Once again, the advantages of such
stationary fuel cell systems compared to the competing condensing boilers or conventional heat and power plants consist of

higher efciencies and reduced emissions, but also of a contribution to decentralised electricity production and to stability of the
electric grid. If the hydrogen used in stationary applications is
produced without CO2 emissions, this is another contribution to
environmental compatibility. What is needed therefore are
reliable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly products!
These products can indeed include fuel cells, but the consumer is
not expected to purchase them just because of the fuel cell, but
because the product utterly satises his needs.
In order to help the hydrogen economy as well as other clean
technologies to penetrate the market, political actions need to be
taken and, if possible, agreed upon at the international level, for
the reduction of CO2 emissions and decreasing oil imports is a
societal and political task. Potential policy measures include CO2
emission thresholds, incentives for energy savings and a global
CO2 emission trading scheme. In Europe, the trade with CO2
emission credits is growing rapidly. The countries involved
submitted their allocation plans for the 20082012 period to the
European Commission in June 2006 already. Germany has
assumed a leading role and is the country that has pressed ahead
the most with planning for the second trading period.
As long as the advantages of hydrogen as a secondary energy
carrier and of related technologies consist of benets to the

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H.-J. Neef / Energy 34 (2009) 327333

society instead of being determined by customer requirements, it

will be difcult to establish a hydrogen economy competing with
the electricity, natural gas and oil economy. In this respect,
technology development seems to be the key. Politicians are
called upon during the transition to the hydrogen economy to
provide sufcient R&D funding, to promote demonstration
projects that provide feedback to those carrying out R&D, and to
support market implementation. The latter support, however,
needs to be brought to zero in a foreseeable time period in order
to prevent permanent subsidies. Industry is also called upon to do
its partas it is expected to bear two-thirds of the Lisbon goal of
3% of the GDP for R&D investments. The development of new
products is an investment in future jobs. If this does not happen,
new cars, household appliances and block heat and power plants
will not come from Germany, Italy and Europe any longer in the
future, but from overseas. Academia is called upon to use the
research funds available efciently and not shy away from
collaborating with industrial companies, including small- and
medium-sized enterprises. To sum up, it can be stated: The use of
hydrogen as an energy carrier would ease the societys dependency on the fossil fuels, oil and gas, that have a limited
availability and a harmful effect on our environment at the same
time. The charm of fuel cells lies in their potential to provide
energy for stationary, mobile and portable applications without
emissions, i.e. environmentally friendly.

2. Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies: technical status and

technical, economic and market targets
Technology seems to be the key, as stated in the previous
chapter. What is the state of the art regarding hydrogen and fuel
cell technologies? Which player is one step ahead of the others,
Europe, Japan or the US? Or will the technical systemsprovided
there will be a hydrogen economycome from South East Asia
where the innovation potentials are growing rapidly<
A detailed comparison of the international state of the art of all
components and systems relevant to the hydrogen economy
would be the scope of a comprehensive study whose results,
however, would already be outdated on the date of publication in
the face of the fast-paced and dynamic development of national
R&D and demonstration programmes and of European and
international cooperation.

Natural gas Coal

Biomass
Gasification
Reforming

So the question is how to describe the state of the art and the
improvements required to bring hydrogen and fuel cell technologies forward in a way that they are marketable; or to use a more
modest formulation: to bring them forward in a way that market
implementation aids are really effective and result in marketable
products<
Let us restart with hydrogen and its production. What is the state
of the art, what are the manufacturing costs and what is the goal<
Fig. 3 shows the different hydrogen production pathways [1].
Today hydrogen is produced through steam reforming from
natural gas and naphtha. Another option to produce hydrogen
from fossil energy carriers is coal gasication in which the gas
produced is again converted into H2 and CO2 through steam
reforming. It is also imperative, though, to develop methods for
zero or at least near-zero CO2 production of hydrogen. This is
where carbon capture and storage (CCS or CO2 sequestration)
technology comes into play. CCS is a technology that is primarily
being developed for electricity generation in zero-emission power
plants. At the same time, however, CCS can serve to produce an
array of products, such as synthesis gas, synthetic natural gas as
well as hydrogen.
Indirect production of hydrogen through electricity and
electrolysis is another option. This one, however, involves heavy
efciency penalties and will only be suitable for a large market if
electricity costs are low enough.
The approaches of water splitting (with nuclear or solar
technologies) and advanced biological processes (photo-biological
production) are still in a low advancement state so that reliable
statements on a potential future commercial deployment are
difcult. However, they still have the potential of a direct CO2
emission-free hydrogen production from renewables or nuclear
energy without any detour over electricity. Therefore intensive
research into these methods should continue.
Fig. 4 outlines the costs of the different hydrogen production
pathways [13] One can easily see that the fossil pathways, even if
CO2 capture and storage is included, are clearly more advantageous as far as costs are concerned. This will change as renewable
energies increase their share of energy supply so as to help make
electrolytic hydrogen production more protable.
Fuel cell cars are appropriate advertising media for industry as
well as for politicians who allocate public money for the development programmes. It is hard to nd any politician, reaching from
Presidents and Ministers to regional representatives who have not

CO2-free power generation

Pre-combustion + CO2-Capture

H2

CO
CO2

329

Carbon-free electricity
generation:

CO2
CO2
sequestration

Synthesis gas (H2, CO2, CO)

Catalysed
synthesis

Natural gas

Methanol

Syn-/ sunfuel

Electrolysis

Hydrogen separation
& conditioning

Hydrogen

Fig. 3. Primary energy sources and conversion processes.

Electricity

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H.-J. Neef / Energy 34 (2009) 327333

Fig. 4. Hydrogen production costs (Euro/GJ).

had a photograph taken showing themselves with such a vehicle.

Currently, around 500600 fuel cell cars are operating worldwide.
According to other sources around 200 of such vehicles are
produced every year. In the upcoming years a higher number can
surely be expected. However, in the next development period
reaching to 2010, the eets are expected to be rather small,
comprising 150200 vehicles. In contrast to that, the number is
expected to rise to 20003500 vehicles by 2015. According to
German daily press Daimler plans to offer the rst small lots of
cars run by fuel cells by 20122015. These cars, however, would be
likely to be employed in conurbations rst. The US programmes
dene the following 2015 targets: By 2015, validate hydrogen
vehicles that have a 300+ mile range and 5,000 hours fuel cell
durability, and hydrogen infrastructure that results in a hydrogen
production cost of $2.50/gasoline gallon equivalent (approximately h2,50/kg) untaxed, and safe and convenient refuelling by
trained drivers. Japan will carry on consistently with its JHFC
Project (Japan Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Demonstration Project) and
has set similar targets as the US. In addition, the Japanese cost
target for 50,000 fuel cell cars after 2010 is 5000 Yen/kW (around
h35/kW at todays exchange rate). It remains, however, more
doubtful that these high units of vehicles and the very ambitious
price targets can be achieved by or shortly after 2010.
What will be crucial will be the stage of market implementation. Indeed, the amount of hydrogen needed will be quite small
and probably subsidised and can be produced through electrolysis
or reformation (with CO2 emissions), but the development of the
infrastructure for the transport sector poses a major nancial
problem. Today, around 230 hydrogen fuelling stations are
operating worldwide. To secure hydrogen supply for hydrogen
vehicles, further investments of substantial scale will be needed.
In its summary of different related estimates the International
Energy Agency (IEA) [3] concludes that total investments for the
construction of up to 60,000 fuelling stations by 2020 will amount
to h10100 billion with assumed costs of h0.252.5 million per
fuelling station.
Targets for stationary applications of fuel cells for residential use
are similar. Such applications, however, are expected to enter the
market at an earlier stage than fuel cell vehicles. This is due to the
fact that the technical requirements are less erce on one hand
and that solutions to infrastructure issues are easier to nd on the
other hand. For residential energy supply the natural gas grid can
be used during a long market implementation stage before a
hydrogen infrastructure comes into operation. Again, targets have
been set as to the cost and life of the appliances. These targets do
not show any important deviation by country. In these types of
application the fuel cell type mostly used is the PEM fuel cell with
the SOFC being of interest, too.
In larger fuel cell systems with a capacity exceeding 200 kW
the already mentioned high temperature fuel cell types MCFC and
SOFC are of primary interest. It is especially the MCFC technology
which is at an advanced development status in Germany and Italy

Fig. 5. (a) Factors to markettransport and (b) factors to marketstationary.

that has achieved very encouraging results in the operation of

appliances and in the accompanying research programmes.
To sum up, the state of the art and the targets that are essential
for the decision on the market launch can be illustrated through
factors of the actual and the target values as can be seen in Fig. 5a
and b. The goal of bringing those factors close to one is the
challenge that can be mastered through intensive R&D works and
the start of mass production. It is important to note that in many
cases the learning curve effect through mass production is not
sufcient to reach the desired targets. Through feedback of the
results of the eld tests and the rst demonstration projects and
through enhanced research with hopefully innovative results
developers and researchers have to manage to make the technical
systems more reliable, cost efcient and consumer friendly so that
the end consumer really buys them. Needed here are not simply
small evolutionary developments as usual, but also revolutionary
progress.

3. GermanyEurope-International: competition and cooperation

Reviewing the national programmes on hydrogen and fuel cells
helps to compare the public funds available for these programmes. Industrys expenses, however, are usually not disclosed,
unless they are known as industry contributions in relation to
government funding in collaborative projects. In December 2004,
the IEA published a report on Hydrogen & Fuel Cells, Review of
National Programs [4]. To sum it up, this report says that in the
IEA countries investments of billions of $ are made over ten years
in the context of several national initiatives and programmes. The
report estimates that in all countries taken into consideration
annual public R&D budgets amount to roughly $1 billion. The
private sector is estimated to invest $34 billion per year.
According to the report, Japan, the US and Europe assume the
lions share of these investments. Of course, these gures do not
yet take into account Germanys Hydrogen and Fuel Cell
Technology Innovation Programme [5] that was launched in

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2006 and will be equipped with an additional h500 million of

public money over the next 10 years.
When analysing the ongoing Japanese and US hydrogen and
fuel cell programmes [6] it becomes clear that considerable public
R&D budgets were available in 2005. An estimated $467 million
have been allocated to the programmes of all federal US
departments as well as at least $5 million from the federal states
programmes. In total, this amounts to $472 million which is h363
million.
In Japan, the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry
allocated 35.4 billion yen (this is h240 million) to hydrogen and
fuel cell technologies in scal year 2005, April 2005 to March
2006. This gure contains the public funds for the market
introduction of stationary residential energy systems. In addition
to the 480 appliances already installed it is planned to add about
780 appliances of 1 kW from several manufacturers in scal year
2006.
The question remains what public R&D budgets are available in
Europe for the technologies considered here. When only considering the European Research Framework Programmes, public
R&D budget amounting to h75 million was spent on hydrogen and
fuel cells per year in the Sixth Framework Programme [7]. For the
sake of coherency, however, the public R&D budget for programmes and initiatives of all EU Members States, including their
regions, should be taken into account. To make European,
Japanese and the US funding comparable the degree of coordination and collaboration of all actors involved also has to be taken
into consideration. The US, and Japan even more so, coordinate
their programmes in a much more centralised way through the
above mentioned ministries, the METI in Japan and the DOE in the
US. Europe is currently unable to keep up with this level of
coordination. This is not only true for the eld of hydrogen and
fuel cells, but for the whole eld of R&D and also for joint
European initiatives aiming to introduce new technologies into
the market. This is why European politicians anchored the concept
of the European Research Area (ERA) on one hand and the
establishment of specic technology platforms on the other hand
in the Sixth Research Framework Programme. As to hydrogen and
fuel cells, the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology
Platform (HFP) was set up in 2004 and the ERA-NET project Coordination Action to Establish a Hydrogen and Fuel Cell ERA-NET
(HY-CO) [8] is funded by the EU.
The project HY-CO comprises 21 partners from 18 European
countries. Its objective is to develop joint strategies and activities
through a systematic exchange of information on the national

331

programmes related to hydrogen and fuel cells. In 2008, HY-CO

partners will continue to publish their common calls on relevant
R&D topics in which industrial and public research organisations
are to collaborate. Every partner will fund its own research
activities. The thematic areas agreed upon are:







hydrogen production,
solid hydrogen storage,
PEM fuel cell stack/system,
high temperature fuel cell (MCFC and SOFC), and
socio-economic aspects.

The joint calls aim to intensify the future coordination of the

country programmes and thus to structure the uncoordinated
procedure of the individual European Member States. This is to
contribute to European competitiveness. However, the ERA is a
top-down approach and is therefore not yet fully accepted by the
Member States programme owners. Maybe this will improve with
the future ERA-Plus concept in which the national funding in
joint calls can be complemented with about 30% funding from the
European budget.
One interesting result from the HY-CO project is a compilation
of information on the contents and public R&D budget of the
national and regional programmes on hydrogen and fuel cells.
This data collection proved (and still proves) to be complicated.
Almost all countries have integrated their hydrogen and fuel cell
R&D projects into a general energy research programme. In many
cases several ministries at the federal, federal state and regional
level are involved. Furthermore, the public funding is made up of
the basic funding of national research institutes plus the project
funding for collaborative projects in which industry, universities
and again national research institutes cooperate. What is even
harder is to learn about industrys investments. This has already
proven to be an obstacle for the set-up of a rst questionnaire on
public R&D budgets of the national and regional programmes
on hydrogen and fuel cells. The rst conclusions drawn from the
HY-CO partners responses have been everything but satisfactory.
Only the responses to a second questionnaire delivered better
results. Fig. 6 shows the public R&D budgets that were allocated
for hydrogen and fuel cell R&D in European countries in 2005. If
these funds are added together, they amount to around h200
million. When adding the above mentioned funds of h75 million
per year from Brussels, the European public R&D budget
amounts to around h275 million in 2005. In many European

European H2&FC R&D Public Budgets 2005

Total: ca. 275 million Euro
80.0
70.0

50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0

countries
Fig. 6. H2 & FC R&D public budgets in Europe.

EC

UK

SE

RO

PT

NO

NL

NER

LT

IT

IS

IE

FI

EL

FR

ES

DK

DE

CZ

BE

CH

0.0
AT

million euro

60.0

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H.-J. Neef / Energy 34 (2009) 327333

countries and also in the EUs Seventh Research Framework

Programme, 2006 and the following years are expected to see a
rise in funds. In Germany the Federal Ministries involved in
hydrogen and fuel cell activities will allocate additional funds of
h500 million for the period from 2006 to 2015 in the new
National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Innovation Programme. About h200 million have already been explicitly set out
in the medium-term nancial planning of the federal ministries
involved for the 20062009 period. Perhaps a 50% increase and
enhanced European coordination might be expected in Europe
over the upcoming years. This would take industry and science
some steps further to the goal to improve Europes position in
international competition.
What can be learned from the comparison of the public R&D
budgets of the regions in the world with substantial hydrogen and
fuel cell research (Fig. 7)< Adding up all European public budgets
they are indeed comparable to those in Japan and the US. It is the
dovetailing and coordination of the national and regional
programmes with each other and with the budgets administered
by the European Commission that still needs to be improved.

H2 & FC R&D Public Budgets

Europe, USA, Japan 2005
400
EU Framework programme
National Budgets

350
million Euro

300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Europe

USA

Japan

Fig. 7. Comparison of H2 & FC R&D public budgets.

However, thanks to the Technology Platform HFP and the Joint

Technology Initiative JTI [9,10] which is to concentrate scientic
and economic interests of the academia, industry and national as
well as regional programmes and to HY-CO ERA-NETone
building block in the construction of an ERAEurope is already
on a good, albeit stony and betimes slow, way.
The HFP [9] is a good example of how to join European forces.
Within the platform, industry and academia are represented in
the Advisory Council. The Member States constitute the Mirror
Group. In 2005, the HFP produced the Strategic Research Agenda
and the Strategic Deployment Strategy. Based on this strategy
an Implementation Panel composed of numerous of experts from
industry and academia has drafted a European work programme
for the upcoming decade. The objective of this work programme
will be to introduce hydrogen and fuel cell technologies into the
market. Targets for the market have been set for the year 2020;
the so-called Snapshot 2020 is shown in Fig. 8. The rst draft of
the Implementation Plan was presented in June 2006, a nal
version taking into account the results of comprehensive expert
interviews, was published in early 2007. The Implementation Plan
is expected to make recommendations also on the work
programme of a planned JTI [10]. The Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7), the bulk of funds for fuel cell and
hydrogen research will be entrusted to the JTI. In September 2007
the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Council
Regulation to set up a Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking
(JU), which will be the legal entity entrusted with the coordinated
use and efcient management of the funds committed to the JTI.
This JTI will be a public private partnership between industry and
the European Commission that will carry out parts of the
hydrogen and fuel cell activities foreseen in the Seventh Framework Programme in a concerted way and with a market
perspective. It is expected that the JTI can take up work in 2008.
Even though the European countries also compete in terms of
research and market, it is important that in an international
context the European economic and research areas have to
be regarded as a whole. This is why Europe often follows a

Fig. 8. Snapshot 2020: key assumptions on H2 & FC applications for 2020 in Europe.

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double-tracked procedure in international cooperation. Individual

Member States as well as the European Commission are partners
in such collaborations. A close European dovetailing and coordination can be observed increasingly often. At the meetings of the
Member States HFP Mirror Group for example, the cooperation in
the context of the IEA and of the International Partnership for the
Hydrogen Economy (IPHE) was a regular agenda item.
The IEA has been housing cooperation agreements called
Implementing Agreements for decades. Regarding hydrogen and
fuel cells, the Advanced Fuel Cell (AFC) Implementing Agreement and the Hydrogen Implementing Agreement (HIA) are of
interest. Italy is involved in both agreements (represented by the
ENEA). Germany is a member of the AFC represented by Research
Centre Juelich and rejoined the HIA in 2007. Apart from the
cooperation projects, the IEA has been dealing with the issue of
hydrogen and fuel cells intensively over the past three years. With
the help of a Hydrogen Coordination Group and nancial
contributions, it has published reports on the respective R&D
programmes in the IEA Member Countries and on scenarios
focussed on the hydrogen economy.
The IPHE [6], founded on the initiative of the US in 2003, does
not lack high-level political support as can be read for example in
the document Global Energy Security (dated 16th July 2006)
from the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg: We support the transition
to the Hydrogen Economy, including the framework of the
International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE). A
critical part of this effort is to develop common international
standards in the eld of commercial development of hydrogen
power, infrastructure and security requirements. It remains
doubtful, however, if the reference to international standards is
representative of ongoing IPHE activities, as several international
boards are already dealing with this issue, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or the UN Economic
Commission for Europe (UN-ECE).
The IPHE was founded to serve as a mechanism to organise
and implement effective, efcient, and focused international
research, development, demonstration and commercial utilisation
activities related to hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. It also
provides a forum for advancing policies, and common codes and
standards that can accelerate the cost-effective transition to a
global hydrogen economy to enhance energy security and
environmental protection (quoted from the IPHE Terms of
Reference). Today, 17 countries are members of the IPHE,
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand,
Russia, United States, and from the EU and associated states Italy,
France, UK, Norway, Iceland, Germany and the European Commission.
It is characteristic of both the IEA and the IPHE that they are
governmental agreements without any centralised nancial
resources for projects and activities. Beyond the intensive
exchange of information at ministerial and government ofcer
level as well as among their agencies and the collaboration
between scientic institutes, it is difcult to motivate industry to
participate actively. This task lying ahead will not be easy to solve.

4. Conclusion
Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies have the potential to
contribute to the goals of a sustainable energy economy. Several

333

factors make it difcult to predict in which scale and when these

new technologies will enter the market:

 the still to be solved technical issues,

 the still to be developed strategy for the transition period
towards a hydrogen economy, and

 the advances over the upcoming years of competing technologies, such as bio fuels, combustion engines, the electricity
economy, micro turbines and renewable energies.

Based on the European projections (Snapshot 2020) that

correspond to those of European and international countries it is
likely that rst of all the small appliances that are less relevant for
the energy economy will penetrate the market. Stationary fuel cell
systems will follow since they do not depend on a hydrogen
infrastructure, either. Only then will a market for fuel cell vehicles
emerge that requires the incremental development of the
necessary infrastructure.
Cooperation on fuel cell and hydrogen technologies is in the
process of being well-ordered in Europe. This relies on strong
programmes in many Member States and strong programme
coordination through the European Commission in Brussels.
Within the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform
(HFP) and the Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) European industry
and academia collaborate intensively and successfully. The ERANET HY-CO is on its way with joint calls on selected research
topics from 2007 onwards and it has built up a network among
those who are in charge of national R&D programmes.
At the international level, the continued cooperation projects
of the IEA and the exchange of information in the IEA boards are of
high value for the European and national strategies. This is true
also for the IPHE, since it is able to gather around the table not
only the developed countries, but also the emerging countries of
Brazil, China and India as well as Russia. It remains to be seen to
what extent the IPHE will be an international forum for the
advancement of policies that are indispensable for the introduction of hydrogen into the energy economy.
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U
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