Last 27th October 2021, the follow-up meeting of the MEDUSA 300 Phase I Project took place in the offices of the General Sub-Directorate for Planning, Technology and Innovation (SDG PLATIN) of the Ministry of Defence. The members of the MEDUSA Joint Venture, together with their collaborator the Fluid Physics Laboratory of the UNED, satisfactorily presented the results achieved related to the scaling, the optimisation of components and the design of 1 kW technological demonstrators. MEDUSA Joint Venture is a temporary union of companies constituted by the CIDAUT Foundation and JALVASUB Engineering to carry out the Phase I of the MEDUSA 300 Project.
The milestone reached is of great importance for the development of the next phases of the Project. It means having demonstrated the national technological and industrial capacity required to start, with all the guarantees and without risk, the manufacture of the PEM fuel cell demonstrators. This demonstration is intended to be on the real scale required for the S-80 submarine and with functional features achieved that even exceed those specified in the project.
This project will develop the fuel cell system for the AIP S-80 Spanish submarines, which will be based on the innovative design of the ULPHE-PEM (Ultra-Light Platinum Content High Efficient- PEM Fuel Cell). The ULPHE-PEM fuel cell is a new generation of polymeric fuel cells, which can operate both at low and high temperatures, and which is based on a completely Spanish-patented technology, more efficient and with lower weight, volume, and cost than those presently existing on the market.
The Spanish Railway Technology Platform (PTFE), whose technical secretariat is provided by the Spanish Railways Foundation, held its 16th Annual Assembly at the headquarters of the Spanish Railways Foundation on 17 November. This year the assembly returned to its normal on-site format. The meeting was chaired by Enrique Playán, Director of the Spanish Research Agency of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and José Carlos Domínguez Curiel, Manager of the Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles.
Within the framework of the European Year of the Railway, the PTFE focused its debate on national and international R&D&I strategies, support instruments for the sector and the disruptive innovation vectors that will drive the railway mode in its consolidation as the backbone of sustainable, connected and safe mobility.
As usual in the PTFE Annual Assembly, the meeting included a specific session for the exhibition of innovative projects that ratify the capabilities of the ecosystem and have a positive impact on the competitiveness of the sector. Technology developments and new elements were presented by leading researchers and experts from different organisations.
On behalf of CIDAUT, Alfonso Horrillo contributed with the advances being made on renewable ammonia and bioethanol as hydrogen carriers in the railway. These developments will go deeper into the possibilities that the use of this energy will favour even more the energy efficiency that characterises the railway mode.
The 16th Annual Assembly ended with the presentation of the innovation strategies of two of the benchmark driving forces for the Spanish railway sector: RENFE and ADIF. The significant impact on the decline in rail transport caused by COVID-19, the liberalisation process, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the development of ERJU (Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking), etc., have led to a review of the strategies of railway operators and managers in which the commitment to innovation is going to be a transcendental factor.
The most relevant innovation strategies and projects (own, collaborative and win win) were presented by Pilar Gorriz, Renfe’s Innovation Manager and José Conrado Martínez, Deputy Director of Innovation, both of whom explained their open approach to collaboration in the development of their innovation with the sector. Their organisations have a high potential to lead and undertake competitive and business processes that involve bringing innovations to the market with a greater potential for success.
Last November, two relevant events took place at national and European level in the field of energy and hydrogen, which CIDAUT had the opportunity to attend.
On 16, 17 and 18 November, the 24th edition of the Energy and Environment Fair, GENERA, was held in Madrid. The Spanish Hydrogen Association, AeH2, organised on 16 November, in collaboration with the Spanish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform (PTE HPC), the conference ‘Green Hydrogen: towards a sustainable energy system’, which was attended by CIDAUT.
This day began with a brief welcome by Miguel Peña, secretary of AeH2, followed by a short introduction by Javier Brey, president of the Association, who began by stating that “interest in hydrogen in Spain is growing exponentially, not only in industry, but also among the population. This interest is more than justified due to the great potential of these technologies to move towards the decarbonisation of our economy”.
Subsequently, two round tables were held with the presence of representatives from the main entities involved in the hydrogen sector. The first round table, with the participation of Carlos de la Cruz Molina, Director of Evaluation and Technological Cooperation of the CDTI, and Santiago González, Head of Renewable Hydrogen in the Department of Regulatory Framework and Corporate Strategy of the IDAE, debated hydrogen as a reactivator of the economy. The second round table was entitled: “Accelerating the development of hydrogen in Spain”. It was attended by the directors and heads of the hydrogen areas of the AeH2 promoter partners.
At European level, the European Hydrogen Week 2021 (EHW 2021) was held in Brussels from 29 November to 3 December. In this edition a hybrid organisation between on-site and online was chosen. CIDAUT attended virtually to the different presentations that took place.
The Week discussed the tremendous opportunities associated with the production and use of hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels in the different sectors of the economy and how hydrogen will play a key role in the European Green Deal. The EHW2021 marked the public launch of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership – as the successor of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU). This edition featured sessions on the future research and deployment priorities for Clean Hydrogen as well the FCH JU Programme Review Days and the FCH JU Awards. The week will also saw the third European Clean Hydrogen Alliance Forum uniting its 1500 members. Topics covered the entire value chain needed to realise the hydrogen economy, scaling-up production, infrastructure, and end-use sectors, research and innovation priorities as well as skills and education.
CIDAUT successfully completes the pilot tests on the use of ANG tanks in dual-fuel converted vehicle within ECOGATE project.
The overall objective of the ECO-GATE project (European COrridors for natural GAs Transport Efficiency) is to study efficiency improvement of conventional and renewable Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) market in the whole Atlantic Corridor (Portugal, Spain and France), the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor (France) and the Spanish Mediterranean Corridor (Spain) through new technologies and innovative solutions for supply logistic services, cleaner fuels, refuelling infrastructure, vehicle and components manufacturers and operational processes.
ECO-GATE is run by a consortium of more than 20 companies from Spain, Portugal, France/ Germany.
CIDAUT innovation in the ECOGATE project is focused on the storage of natural gas on-board at lower pressure than Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), specifically in the adsorbed natural gas storage (ANG). CIDAUT has carried out the characterization of the loading and unloading processes of this type of adsorbed natural gas storage systems in an experimental facility and as a final step, the adsorbent natural gas (ANG) storage technology has been validated in a pilot test on a dual-diesel van.
This system stores more energy per unit volume at the same pressure as the storage of compressed natural gas (CNG). ANG allows the use of tanks that work at lower pressure (60 bar), with the advantages that this entails: greater flexibility in the design of the tank, greater formability, lower refuelling costs, the possibility of home refuelling and greater safety. With the installation of a pressure regulator, it has been possible to refuel these vehicles in conventional refuelling stations, limiting their filling pressure to 60 bar.
Despite the decrease in activity due to covid-19, since February 2020, the vehicle has travelled more than 25,000 km and consumed about 100kg of NGV through this ANG tank.
During this period, vehicle operation, refuelling and vehicle operating conditions were monitored to enable conclusions to be drawn from this in-vehicle research.
The main results of this pilot test showed that the type of transformation of the vehicle to dual-fuel, as well as the operating conditions (mainly urban environment) lead to not very high degrees of substitution of diesel for natural gas. However, the possibility of using this type of ANG tanks in gas vehicles has been corroborated, allowing them to be refuelled in conventional gas refuelling stations, although they are best filled at slow-charge, low-pressure supply points where the energy cost of refuelling is optimised.
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On 16 and 17 March the Ente Regional de la Energía de Castilla y León and the company Tresca Engineering organised the online conferences “RENEWABLE HYDROGEN IN THE INDUSTRY OF CASTILLA Y LEÓN”.
The conference was opened by Mr. Carlos Javier Fernández Carriedo, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Junta de Castilla y León. The agenda was divided into two days and included the virtual presence of experienced speakers from the Ente Regional de Energía de Castilla y León, the European Commission, CNH2-Centro Nacional del Hidrógeno, ICE-Instituto para la Competitividad Empresarial de Castilla y León, CIDAUT, Enagás and Carburos Metálicos.
Europe’s ambitious objective of climate neutrality requires a remodelling of the current energy systems, inevitably towards others that are more environmentally friendly, which, on the other hand, are less manageable than the current ones. This is where hydrogen takes on an absolute protagonism as an energy vector, enabling flexible interconnection between the electricity and gas systems, in addition to achieving the decarbonisation of the economy in its final use.
In July 2020, the European Commission presented the document: “European Hydrogen Strategy: towards a climate-neutral Europe” (EU Hydrogen Strategy), which aims to establish the necessary guidelines to develop the role of clean hydrogen in reducing emissions in the EU economy in an efficient manner. Subsequently, and in line with this document, in September 2020, the Spanish Government published the document “Hydrogen Roadmap: A commitment to renewable hydrogen”, which offers a vision for 2030 and 2050, the aim of which is to ensure the industrial and technological positioning of our economy within the EU framework.
In the industry sector, the main driving force of the economy, there is a commitment to the use of high purity H2 as a raw material in current processes (e.g. refinery, ammonia production, extraction of metals from oxides) from renewable resources and its use to cover high temperature thermal demands (e.g. material fusion processes, ceramic furnaces, cement factories, glass).
Our CIDAUT colleague Jose Ignacio Dominguez had the opportunity to speak about the “DEGREE OF INNOVATION FOR THE USE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF HYDROGEN IN INDUSTRY”, as a key point in the development of the hydrogen technologies.
The conference “Renewable hydrogen in the industry of Castilla y León” highlighted the immense challenge in which we are immersed, the need to undertake the decarbonisation of the industrial sector as soon as possible and the tremendous opportunities that arise for the industry in this context.
Hydrogen Europe Research (HER) is the research grouping of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, a unique public private partnership supporting research, technological development and demonstration (RTD) activities in fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies in Europe. Gathering 91 research institutions (universities and research centres), HER support and promote research interests in the FCH JU and create a framework for cooperation of science and industry in Europe.
After a General Assembly held on 14 December 2020, 10 new members joined Hydrogen Europe Research and CIDAUT was one of them. The membership process involved a presentation by CIDAUT of its capabilities and areas of expertise. After the presentation of the candidates, HER voted on the nominations and CIDAUT was admitted together with 9 other institutions.
HER is now present across 26 countries and gathers 90 members and 1 associate member.
Hydrogen Europe Research´s mission is to promote, support and accelerate the deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell technology by aligning the European R&D community and providing a stronghold for cooperation with industry increasing the impact of research in the sustainable shift to the clean technologies and now CIDAUT is part of this important partnership in the world of hydrogen and fuel cells.
