Work in Parliament "Towards the deployment of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen technologies"

On the occasion of the 2011 Stakeholders General Assembly of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, Ms Carvalho hosted the high-level lunch "Towards the deployment of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen technologies" which took place at the Members' Salon of the European Parliament.

The FCH JU, a public-private partnership set up between the European Commission and the European Industry and Research sector, manages a €1 billion budget for the development and breakthrough of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technologies solutions.

The potential of FCH's contribution to Community policies - in particular energy, environment, transport, sustainable development and economic growth is huge. Combined with fuel cells, hydrogen generates electricity without emitting any harmful greenhouse gas emissions or particles. Hydrogen can contribute to energy security, as it can be produced from all primary energy sources, ensuring its almost limitless availability in Europe, and can be stored for off-peak consumption when combined with fuel cell technologies.

But we are coming to a crucial point both in the development of those technologies, as some are now reaching maturity stages but still require even more extensive deployment efforts to succeed, and in the European budgetary decision making process which will impact the level of continuing future support for those technologies.

As advanced and developing countries invest huge amounts of money in R&D, EU institutions, national and regional governments, industry and research community must jointly define a long-lasting strategy for the final development stages and roll-out of these technologies. Europe is at risk of trailing behind the global race to market, and must fully recognise the vast potential of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies. For this to happen it is vital to have stronger political leverage from the European Parliament to firmly establish where fuel cells and hydrogen fit into the long term Energy Agenda and eventual decarbonisation of Europe.

To this end prominent Members of the European Parliament together with Major Industry Players took part in a lunch debate to discuss political and strategic orientations of FCH technologies in the context of the EU 2020 targets (environment, research and transport policies).

The MEP participating in the lunch debate were Mario Mauro EPP Head of the Italian Delegation; Jo Leinen, S&D, Chair ENVI Committee; Patrizia Toia, S&D, Vice Chair ITRE; Herbert Dorfmann, Member AGRI; Silvia Adriana Ţicău, S&D, Member TRAN; Ines Ayala Sender, S&D, Member TRAN; Giovanni La Via, EPP, Committee on Budgets; Barbara Matera, EPP, Committee on Budgets; and Satu Hassi, Greens, Committee on the Environment.

After the  introductory speech by Ms Carvalho and by the Chair of the Governing Board, Pierre Etienne Franc, the discussion started about specific issues within big application areas such as transport and refuelling; Hydrogen production and distribution, Stationary power generation and CHP and early markets.