Ballard Power Systems Europe A/S, a subsidiary of Canadian fuel cell solutions provider Ballard Power Systems, announced establishment of a Marine Center of Excellence, dedicated to fuel cell marine applications at the company’s engineering, manufacturing and service facility in Hobro, Denmark.
The Marine Center of Excellence will design and manufacture heavy duty fuel cell modules to address zero-emission powertrain requirements for the marine industry.
A new motive fuel cell system manufacturing hall is planned to be constructed and operational at the Hobro location by year-end 2019, with expected annual production capacity of more than 15 MW of fuel cell modules.
The move comes in response to a growing interest in reduction of pollutants and carbon emissions for the marine industry and port cities. Regulations to restrict diesel emissions are being introduced at the local and regional levels in various parts of the world, and this is generating interest in zero-emission fuel cell technology.
In 2018, IMO also announced a strategy to reduce GHG emissions from ships, including a 50% reduction in GHG by 2050 as compared to the 2008 level, and complete elimination of GHG’s as soon as possible in this century. The IMO has estimated that 1.135 billion tonnes of CO2 was emitted by ships in 2008, representing 3.5% of the global total that year.
Fuel cell module development work at the Marine CoE will be based on Ballard’s new fuel cell stack and next-generation heavy duty power module, which are planned for commercial launch later this year, and will be designed to meet European marine certification requirements.
In addition to work on MW-scale marine power solutions with ABB, Ballard is actively involved in a number of sub-MW marine projects, including: development of HySeas III, the world’s first sea-going renewables-powered car and passenger ferry, which will operate in the Orkney Archipelago off the coast of Scotland; participation in the H2PORTS project to facilitate a rapid transition at Europe’s ports from fossil fuels to low-carbon, zero-emission alternatives based on hydrogen and fuel cells, initially at the Port of Valencia in Spain; and a Flagships project to demonstrate fuel cell commercial readiness by powering a ferry in Norway and a river barge in France.
