Research and Innovation Activities on PEM Fuel Cells and Electrolysers Supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership

The Clean Hydrogen Partnership — the successor of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) — aims to contribute to EU Green Deal and Hydrogen Strategy by providing financial support for research and innovation activities in the field of advanced clean hydrogen technologies. It builds on 15 years of strategic cooperation between public and private sectors enabling several innovative technologies to advance from the experimental scale closer to maturity. The projects funded under the previous FCH JU programmes and the first Call for Proposals 2022 of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership have significantly advanced both the proton-exchange membrane-based fuel cell (PEMFC) and electrolyser (PEMEL) technologies. So far, about 660 million EUR were allocated to support 122 projects addressing different aspects of PEMFC and PEMEL technologies. A large share of this funding, around 585 mil EUR supporting 102 projects, was dedicated to large scale demonstrations of PEMFC in transport and stationary applications. Largely thanks to this support, the EU reached a competitive position to provide PEMFC and PEMEL technologies with a well-established supply chain from processing the raw materials into specialised materials (e.g. electro-catalysts), production of components and sub-systems. Significant advancements have been made in the development, validation and demonstration of PEM fuel cell technologies for material handling vehicles, buses and passenger cars as well as stationary applications. Future research and demonstration projects on PEM fuel cells are needed in transport sector such as heavy-duty vehicles, industrial vehicles, shipping and aviation. The R&I projects on PEM electrolysers have contributed to making hydrogen production more competitive and enabled the scale-up of these technologies alongside improvements in efficiency and cost reduction. Significant progress has been made on PEMEL for example: (i) achieving a rapid response time (in the order of a few seconds) needed in grid balancing, (ii) upscale the PEM electrolysers to a multi-MW level and (iii) providing reliable green hydrogen production solutions to decarbonise industrial processes. This paper will cover the status and main results of R&I activities in PEM fuel cells and electrolysers supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, including an overview of the European competitiveness in this sector.