LONDON (Alliance News) - Intelligent Energy Holdings PLC on Tuesday said it will lead a pan-European group of companies, including FTSE 100-listed Johnson Matthey PLC, to develop its EC fuel-stack technology so it is suitable for mass manufacturing and can be used in vehicles by 2020.
"Hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles are a reality for the 'here and now'. To bring them to mass market, we need to ensure our fuel cell stacks are robustly industrialised, which is the aim of this programme," said Chris Dudfield, director of Intelligent Energy's research and technology division.
The project, named VolumeriQ, is a three-year programme supported by EUR5.0 million of funding from the European programme, the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking. The aim is to develop Intelligent Energy's 90 kilowatt EC fuel cell stack so it is suitable to be mass manufactured with the target of having the stack ready to be installed in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020.
Intelligent Energy's Evaporatively Cooled 90 kilowatt fuel cell automotive technology is a compact and power dense system that requires fewer balance of plant components than conventional fuel cell solutions.
According to its website, the company said the fuel cell stack is designed "for high volume, low cost manufacturing, utilising modular architecture that can be quickly modified to suit our customers final application, form factor and power duty requirements".
Alongside Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells, part of the FTSE 100-listed company, the other partners are Solvay Speciality Polymers, ElringKlinger and Pretexo; as well as academic input from CNRS Montpellier. Furthermore, BMW Group and Daimler will participate in the project to set out the stack requirements.
"The three-year programme got off to a great start recently as representatives from the partner businesses gathered at Intelligent Energy's Loughborough headquarters to kick off the scope of work. The programme outputs must demonstrate cost reduction, advance manufacturing technology with optimised component detail designs," said Intelligent Energy.
Intelligent Energy shares were trading flat on Tuesday morning at 97.0 pence per share, whilst Johnson Matthey shares were down 2.1% to 2,540.00p, one of the worst performers in the FTSE 100.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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Johnson Matthey (JMAT)