SIN podcast: Paolo Marcazzan talks fuel cells with Gregory Offer

Our Science and Innovation Officer at the British Consulate-General in Vancouver, Paolo Marcazzan, recently attended the 2011 Hydrogen and Fuel Cells International Conference, coordinated a research visit and interviewed Dr. Gregory Offer of Imperial College London. You can listen to the podcast below, and click [Read More] to read what Paolo had to say about the conference (hover your pointer over any unfamiliar acronyms to reveal what they stand for):

The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Conference took place in Vancouver from 15-18 May 2011. The conference highlighted the current status of the industry and existing challenges and opportunities, from both technology development and policy making standpoints. The major obstacles to FC commercialisation remain the high cost, durability and infrastructure development, but some of the advantages that FCs can offer could be exploited in conjunction with those of other technologies (e.g. as range extenders in EVs). The cost for PEMFCs has fallen to ca. $51/kWh, but the goal is to lower it to about $30/kWh if FCs are to become competitive with ICEs. SOFCs are among the most efficient devices known (>90% when used in CHP), and are poised to become an excellent alternative for remote/distributed power generation. They are also being actively looked at for future applications in zero-emissions gas-fuelled power plants coupled with CCS, and as backup/reversible units in renewable/SOFC energy power balance systems.

Senior representatives from the German, Japanese, United States, and Korean Governments and the EU Commission outlined the current policy frameworks in support of the HFC industry within their jurisdictions – all jurisdictions acknowledged the challenges (see above) but confirmed strong support programmes with a particular focus on accelerating technology deployment and commercialisation.

The S&I Canada Network (Vancouver Post) helped support the visit by bringing four UK researchers to HFC2011 (Drs. Offer and Maher from Imperial College London and Drs. Pollet and Bujalski from the University of Birmingham) and organising targeted meetings with some of the key HFC players in Vancouver (such as Ballard Power Systems, AFCC-Auto, UBC CERC and NRC–IFCI) to discuss collaboration opportunities. Potential leads were identified with each organisation in areas of vehicle system integration, development of in-situ diagnostics, as well as student exchanges. As visit coordinator, I had the chance to sit down with Dr. Gregory Offer, a recently appointed EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow at Imperial College, to discuss the broader themes that underpin HFC technology development and implementation (e.g. decarbonisation of the transportation sector, emissions reduction in power generation) – the podcast is a brief excerpt of the conversation.