OEM&Lieferant Ausgabe 2/2021

ElringKlinger www.elringklinger.com EKPO Fuel Cell Technologies www.ekpo-fuelcell.com Share af fordable green hydrogen is no longer just a vision. High cost, low lifetime and manageable reliability are seen as the main barriers to commercialization of fuel cell technology. Would you agree with that? It‘s true that the cost of the technology and limited experience, as well as slow infra- structure development, have been the main barriers to fuel cell deployment. But that will change. EKPO is already achieving much higher productivity through industrialized pro- cesses, plus volume effects that are also reducing costs for material suppliers. As the market ramps up, economies of scale will be generated by increasing volumes along the entire value chain. Unit costs will fall, we expect by at least a factor of 5. This will make the technology increasingly com- petitive for passenger cars as well, gen- erating even greater demand. To this end, EKPO has already set up a production line in Germany that is designed for an annual capacity of up to 10,000 stacks and can be expanded quickly. In terms of reliability, Toyota, Hyundai and Daimler have demonstrated the maturity of the technology. Their passenger car models (Mirai, Nexo, GLC) have shown no signifi- cant problems in the field. In fact, FCEVs are used daily in demanding applications, such as cab operations in Paris. While longevity has already been proven for passenger car applications, fuel cell life- times of up to 30,000 hours are required for commercial vehicle applications, such as heavy trucks, trains or buses. In addition, in this market segment, efficiency or hydrogen consumption is a very important parameter which, especially at high mileages, is fac- tored into the operating costs even more than the fuel cell stack costs and ultimately represents an important factor for economic viability. In addition, EKPO is already actively working on the next generation of stacks, cooperat- ing with truck, bus and train manufacturers. We are ready for large volumes. Armin Diez www.infoteam.de Your longtime expert for software development Together we shape the future for Industry Infrastructu re Life Science Public Service