On Wednesday 11 October, the PACE and ene.field partners organised in Brussels the event “Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration: Generating Sustainable Heat and Power for your Home” to present the final results of the EU co-funded project ene.field, and to officially introduce its successor PACE. The event was organised in partnership with the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), a public private partnership supporting research, technological development and demonstration activities in fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies in Europe. We were joined by more than 100 participants from the heating and energy industry, policymakers, academia, press and civil society.

By 2020, both ene.field and PACE will have invested more than 140 million euro in moving the Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration technology to commercialisation. The projects bring together major manufacturers from across Europe, utilities and research institutes. ene.field has deployed and monitored over 1,000 installations of residential Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration across 10 key European countries. The results of the project, which you can find in the Summary of analyses, demonstrated that the technology is market ready, while the report authored by Imperial College London shows clear system and environmental benefits of micro-Cogeneration. The event also highlighted the need to develop the right policy framework to encourage wide deployment of this technology in Europe. A policy framework should be developed which creates a level playing field where renewables, decarbonisation and efficiency can be delivered across different technologies and energy vectors (e.g. electricity, heat, gas). Key policy recommendations are available in the ene.field Policy Report. The PACE project will build upon the successes of ene.field and aims at installing at least 2,500 units by 2021, as part of a manufacturing transition to higher volumes in the order of 10,000 units per year after 2020.

All the presentations of the event are available here below.

• The benefits of Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration and its role in contributing to the EU’s climate and energy targets – Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU)
• Regions paving the way for the future of the energy transition – Klaus Gütling, Policy Adviser, Hessen Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development
• Introduction to ene.field – Fiona Riddoch, COGEN Europe
• Lessons learnt from field trial – Lisa Ruf, Principal Consultant, Element Energy
• Capabilities, potentials and barriers: lessons learnt – Eva Ravn Nielsen, Center Manager, FCH Test Center, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
• Macro-economic and macro-environmental impact of widespread deployment of Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration – Predrag Djapic, Research Associate, Imperial College London
• PACE – Pathway to a Competitive European Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration market – Ian Walker, Director, Element Energy
• The exemplary role of local communities in the energy transition – The Ameland island story – Jacob Dijkstra, Project Engineer Sustainable Energy, Municipality of Ameland island

During the event, the première of the ene.field video “Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration in the policy debate” and of the ene.field video for end-users were also presented (please, turn on subtitles in YouTube if it does not happen automatically).