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Isle of Wight £1.3m grant for hydrogen fuel project
Production, July 19 2012 (The Hydrogen Journal)
- The Isle of Wight, off the South Coast of the UK, has won a £1.3m grant from the UK government backed Technology Strategy Board, to set up a hydrogen production and vehicle fuelling system running on surplus renewable energy.
The project will cost £4.66m, and is being run by Ecoisland Partnership CIC, a "community interest company".
The project is being led by hydrogen company ITM Power.
The grant has been provided through the Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Fuel Cells and Hydrogen: Whole System Integration’ competition for research and development funding.
The hydrogen will be generated using renewable energy which is surplus to requirements (for example wind power generated overnight).
There will be a 15kg / day hydrogen fuelling station for boats on the South Coast of the Island, and a 100kg/day unit in the centre of the island for fuelling vehicles, which will be provided by Hyundai, Microcab and River Simple.
There will be fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen combustion engine vans and a hydrogen combustion engien boat.
The refuellers and system integration wil be provided by ITM Power.
Also involved in the project is Ecoisland Partners, SSE, Toshiba, IBM, Cable and Wireless and Cheetah Marine, as well as National Physical Laboratory, Arcola Energy, and the Universities of Glamorgan and Nottingham.
"Ecoisland is delighted to have been selected as the location for this exciting hydrogen trial, the first of its kind in the country," said David Green, CEO of Ecoisland.
"As the UK's leading sustainability project it is appropriate that the refueller trial is going to be based here."
Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) will provide the connection to the island's electricity grid.
Toshiba will ensure compatibility of the hydrogen system with its Energy Management System and the Distribution Network Operator (“DNO”) networks, enabling it to actively participate in the energy balancing of the distribution network in future.
IBM will develop a user interface to allow smart card payments facilities to the refuellers to meter and monitor hydrogen provision.
Cable & Wireless Worldwide will provide communications to allow remote monitoring of both refueller and vehicles and allow data collection and data cloud integration.
National Physical Laboratory will develop hydrogen purity tests to ensure compliance with FCEV requirements (ISO14687-2).
Ecoisland CIC will assist in site surveying, planning applications, and will operate the hydrogen car club – members of which include Vestas and Southern Water. With Arcola Energy they will organise and run a FCEV road show with ride and drive.
Arcola Energy will develop an educational and dissemination package and will provide public and commercial engagement activities.
Cheetah Marine will build a hydrogen catamaran in conjunction with ITM Power and operate it in validation trials.
The University of Nottingham and The University of Glamorgan will evaluate the performance and operating characteristics of the refuelling stations and use their own ITM Power electrolyser fed refuelling stations for the generation of refuelling strategies to optimise the efficiency of operation.
The Technology Strategy Board has offered the consortium the grant on the standard condition that pre-project documents are completed by the deadline. The project will commence once all grant conditions have been met.
