HYDROGEN ROADMAP

In the last years the public interest in hydrogen and fuel cell technology has been significantly growing and it has become a common view that global problems such as security of energy supply or climate change can only be solved with hydrogen from renewable resources in the long term. However, the search for technical solutions for a future hydrogen economy has begun already 50 years ago when the U.S. Air Force tested first hydrogen fuelled gas turbines for jet planes /1/ in the mid fifties and NASA’s space programme evolved. Today hydrogen fuelled cars, home fuel cell units for the generation of power and heat and other consumer applications like portables have reached the stage of demonstration and the market introduction of first products could happen before 2010. In the US and Japan governments have already recognised the necessity to support the introduction of a hydrogen economy by political and fiscal measures. Besides the public funding of research projects for hydrogen technologies a strategic hydrogen roadmap was developed in the US and Japan. Targets for the commercialisation of mobile, stationary and portable applications have been formulated from a socio-economic level. Furthermore, milestones for a corresponding political and legal framework as well as for the technical and economical performance of different applications have been developed.
In Europe, there have been only minor activities, mostly based on member state level. Therefore the High Level Group for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells (HLG) pointed out the urgent need for Europe to create a political framework that “enables new technologies to gain market entry within the broader context of future transport and energy strategies and policies” and develop a European Roadmap for Hydrogen /3/. The HyNet partners in harmony with the European Commission’s DG Research decided to build on the vision of the HLG and to develop a first European Hydrogen Roadmap until the end of 2003 which will be the base for a fully validated roadmap which will be developed by HyWays under the Framework 6 Programme.