Ballard Power Systems Europe will establish a Marine Center of Excellence (Marine CoE) focused on fuel cell marine applications at the company’s engineering, manufacturing and service facility in Hobro, Denmark. The Marine CoE will design and manufacture heavy duty fuel cell modules to address zero-emission powertrain requirements for the shipping industry.
A new motive fuel cell system manufacturing hall will be constructed at the Hobro location by the end 2019, with expected annual production capacity of over 15 megawatts (MW) of fuel cell modules.
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Fuel cell module development work at the Marine CoE will be based on Ballard’s new fuel cell stack and heavy duty power module, which will launch later this year. It will also be designed to meet European marine certification requirements.
The fuel cell modules aim to deliver:
- Design flexibility, including modular components and scalable power (from 100 kilowatts to over 1MW) to support vessel propulsion, auxiliary power and/or system redundancy;
- Extended range, proportionate to the volume of energy-rich compressed liquid hydrogen fuel stored on board a vessel (which can also be rapidly replenished), rather than creating a weight challenge through the addition of heavy batteries;
- Positive economics, underpinned by the compatibility of fuel cell DC power with battery hybrid electric architectures.
In addition, Ballard is involved in several 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;
- Flagships project to demonstrate fuel cell commercial readiness by powering a ferry in Norway and a river barge in France.
Jesper Themsen, President and CEO of Ballard Power Systems Europe A/S, noted:
We are now witnessing early indicators of long-term disruption in the marine industry, with dirty diesel engines being substituted by zero-emission fuel cell systems
