The new funding opportunity (FOA) will provide funding to meet DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office’s (FCTO’s) goals for Hydrogen Production and Delivery, Hydrogen Storage, Fuel Cell Technologies, Technology Validation, Manufacturing, and Analysis Programs.

The FOA has four projected areas of interest—Research and Development; Demonstration and Deployment; Consortium Topics; and Analysis—each with their own topics.

Applicants to the Energy Department’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office’s fiscal year 2017 funding opportunity will collaborate with national lab consortia stemming from the EMN initiative. The EMN consortia have been launched to make unique, world-class capabilities at the national laboratories more accessible to industry and academia, facilitating collaborations that will expedite the development of advanced materials.

National lab consortia that will be leveraged include:

• Electrocatalysis Consortium (ElectroCat)–this consortium will accelerate the development of catalysts made without platinum group metals (PGM-free) for use in transportation fuel cell applications.

• HydroGEN Consortium (HydroGEN)–this consortium will accelerate the development of advanced water splitting materials for hydrogen production, with an initial focus on advanced electrolytic, photoelectrochemical, and solar thermochemical pathways.

• Hydrogen Materials—Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC)–this consortium aims to address unsolved scientific challenges in the development of viable solid-state materials for storage of hydrogen onboard vehicles.

Fiscal year 2017 funding will also be targeted at the development of low-cost, high-strength precursors for carbon fibers that can be used in vehicular hydrogen storage vessels. Applicants for this topic will be encouraged to collaborate with LightMat, an EMN consortium launched by the DOE Vehicle Technologies Office to enable light-weighting of vehicles through the development of high-strength steels and carbon fiber.

Source: “2015 Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report” Click to enlarge.

In addition to transportation applications, hydrogen has the potential to decarbonize multiple sectors by enabling renewable, energy storage, and low carbon industrial applications.

To further support hydrogen and fuel cell innovation, the DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) is partnering with the Fuel Cell Technologies Office (FCTO) to develop training modules, including safety and outreach modules, as part of FEMP’s training program. This collaboration will continue to grow FEMP’s diverse offerings of training courses and build on FCTO’s existing outreach efforts to various stakeholders. For example, more than 36,000 emergency responders and code officials have been reached through on-line and in-person trainings. This partnership will allow for broad dissemination of information and increased awareness of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

All of this points to a hydrogen and fuel cell market that continues to grow rapidly. According to the DOE’s 2015 Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report, many U.S. state efforts during the year focused on encouraging the growth of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) on state roadways, particularly in California, where two commercial FCEVs are available to customers (Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell and Toyota Mirai), as well as the development of hydrogen fueling infrastructure. These efforts, in California, Hawaii, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, include grant funding for station development and rebates for the purchase of FCEVs.

DOE-supported fuel cell and hydrogen research have helped reduce the cost of transportation fuel cells by 50% since 2007 by quadrupling durability, and reducing the amount of platinum by a factor of five.

—Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Friedman