AFC Energy delivers first hydrogen fuel cell system to engineering giant ABB.
[Summer Update] It is shaping up to be a very busy Summer for AFC Energy as we mobilise our teams and systems across the world for further deployments.The first of these is our rapid EV charging integration work with ABB. As we reported at half year, we’ve closely worked with ABB over the past six months to design the required architecture to enable the integration of their charge-point infrastructure with our fuel cells to provide an off-grid solution where the grid is constrained or absent.
We’ve now formally moved into the testing phase of the programme, with our system – and three of our team – now at ABB’s Electrification Solutions Systems Factory south of Tallinn in Estonia to appraise its performance and operability over the next few weeks.
This will provide essential test data to influence the design of the partnership’s first integrated product; you can read more on this work here.
Our fuel cell power system for Extreme E – and the solar-powered electrolyser to produce green hydrogen on-site – has also safely arrived in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland ahead of the championship’s third round on the 28th and 29th of August.
Our staff will be staying in an old army barracks (!) ahead of commissioning and running the system over the race weekend and you can expect to see a variety of global media taking a detailed look over it come then.
Since Extreme E’s last race in Senegal at the end of May, we’ve had a number of enquiries on how our green hydrogen generation system works at each round; this infographic neatly explains how it works.
With both of our key deployment teams required for these high-profile international jobs, we have had to take the difficult decision to no longer take part in the British Motor Show on the 19th to 22nd August. This is a real shame but I’m sure that all of our stakeholders will recognise that our key contracts and partnerships need to come first.
Finally, COP 26 is now less than three months away and I’ve been delighted to see yet more Government investment and support for hydrogen in the run up to it. In the past month, the European Commission has published its ‘Fit for 55’ package of climate legislation (named after the 55% greenhouse gas emission reduction it aims to achieve by 2030).
It is therefore a disappointment to see the UK continuing to lag behind other nations in producing a its first Hydrogen Strategy, with the latest indication that it will only be published after Summer recess.
We continue to make our case with Government on the need to think solely beyond green hydrogen in how the energy transition will be fuelled and for it to take the lead in deploying hydrogen-based technologies on key capital projects to set the standard for the rest of industry.
A Summer Update, August 16, 2021
