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A competition for up to £7.2 million of funding for companies to develop Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technology opens today. The competition is being funded by the
Department of Energy and Climate Change and is part of measures for stimulating low carbon technologies announced in this year’s budget.

A competition for up to £7.2 million of funding for companies to develop Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technology opens today. The competition is being funded by the
Department of Energy and Climate Change and is part of measures for stimulating low carbon technologies announced in this year’s budget.

Companies will be able to bid to the Technology Strategy Board, who will manage the programme, for a share of the cash to develop and test the technology.

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells have the potential to help drastically reduce carbon emissions because they only emit water and heat as by products. The energy conversion in fuel cells is more efficient than those of other technologies such as the internal combustion engine.

Energy and Climate Change Minister, David Kidney said:

“The UK has the right combination of expertise, ingenuity and determination to bring hydrogen and fuel cell technology to the global market. We’re providing real help now to help advance this technology in the UK, keeping us at the forefront of advanced green manufacturing.”

Notes to Editors

1. You can find out more about the competition here:
http://www.innovateuk.org/deliveringinnovation/forthcomingcompetitions.ashx 

2. Technology Strategy Board was set up in 2007 as a business led non-departmental public body to play a cross-Government leadership role in delivering a national technology strategy and advising on polices which relate to technology innovation and knowledge transfer. Technology Strategy Board is sponsored by BIS.

Technology Strategy Board operates across sectors of the UK economy, including energy, to stimulate innovation in those areas which offer the greatest scope for boosting UK growth and productivity. Technology Strategy Board’s total value of low carbon energy projects is around £127m, including contributions from other funders.

3. The target markets that the programme aims to support are transport and stationary power generation.

The programme could therefore support projects to:

- Facilitate the demonstration of a fleet of fuel cell and hydrogen vehicles.
- Facilitate the demonstration of residential micro CHP and distributed power generation products based on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies.
- Facilitate the demonstration of production of hydrogen from non-carbon sources and its use as an energy carrier.
- Facilitate the development of scalable processes and equipment for the mass manufacture and testing of fuel cells and fuel cells modules.
- Enable in line product testing and testing for performances and reliability under realistic operating conditions.

Contacts:

Department of Energy and Climate Change
nds.decc@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Jonathan Farr
Phone: 0300 068 5223
jonathan.farr@decc.gsi.gov.uk