EWE is taking part in a joint project of business and politics
Cooperation on fuel cell technology
Oldenburg, October 30, 2006. Business and politics have teamed up to help fuel cell technology get its big break. As part of the “National Innovation Program – hydrogen and fuel cell” they are planning to help this future technology become fit for the market by implementing joint demonstration projects. The innovation program has been launched by the federal government and business and government intend to provide at least one billion euros over the next decade. The state plans to inject 500 million euros. The aim is to encourage the use of fuel cells both in the automotive sector as well as for domestic energy supply.
In the field of domestic energy supply the Oldenburg-based energy provider EWE, the energy companies EnBW, and MVV and the appliance manufacturer Vaillant, Viessmann and European Fuel Cell (efc) have all embraced the initiative.
“We are delighted to be able to closely cooperate with powerful partners across the country and to put our technological competence to the test in demonstration projects, so-called beacon projects”, said EWE project manager Andreas Ballhausen. The companies have already actively worked together before in the national fuel cell initiative, IBZ.
In addition to the national innovation program that has now been decided upon, companies and politicians also want to collaborate more closely at the European level. With this in mind the Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) is to start work in 2007. EWE has already been participating in the preparations for the European-wide initiative since this February.
EWE is inputting its many years of experience: back in 1998 the company tested natural gas powered fuel cell devices of various manufacturers in practice and was thus one of the pioneers of this technology.
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