Investors in hydrogen to leverage Danish business opportunities
Peter Plesner, Cleantech Advisor at Invest in Denmark, underlines that the Danish energy policy is extremely ambitious.
It has paved the way for an advanced Danish hydrogen market both in relation to storage and transportation. The challenge is to make the production of hydrogen commercially sustainable and this is why we need to join forces with international companies.
Capturing fluctuating green energy
Hans Aage Nielsen, Business Developer at the public Danish company Energinet, explains how “efficient low cost storage solutions optimise the energy system, reduce infrastructure investments and increase utilisation of intermittent renewable energy sources. Large scale hydrogen storage in salt caverns is a very efficient and low cost storage solution that can play a significant role in Denmark and globally.”
One of the companies already involved in a large project related to energy storage in Denmark is Air Liquide from France.
We are involved in a large-scale power-to-gas project in Denmark called HyBalance which is funded by the European Union and Forskel, a Danish fund promoting environmentally friendly electricity production development. The idea is to convert excess wind-generated electricity to hydrogen, which can be used in e.g. transportation or as an energy source in industry processes. How to store and deliver this hydrogen is also part of the project. We have already started the construction of our site in Hobro and are looking forward to the opening in 2017.
Centre of excellence for green transportation
Once stored as hydrogen, the energy can be used as a green alternative to fossil fuels for transportation. Denmark already offers good market opportunities thanks to fuelling stations in all parts of the country.
This is only one of the reasons why the Canadian company Ballard has selected Denmark as their European Centre of Excellence for Public Transit.
According to a report by the International Energy Agency, Denmark is spending more than twice as much per citizen on R&D in fuel cell technology than any other country in the world and it has a nationwide network of hydrogen fuelling stations. In addition, there is a unique tradition for cooperation between the public sector, research institutions and private companies. This enables the ideal conditions for development, testing and implementation of new solution. This is why we have made Denmark our European Centre of Excellence for Public Transit.
Ballard first entered the Danish market in 2010 with the acquisition of Dantherm Power.
One of the transportation projects Ballard is currently involved in is HyFlexDrive, partly funded by EUDP, with the aim of developing the next generation of motive fuel cell in cooperation with Aalborg University, CEMTEC and M-Field.