CEET becomes part of the National Hydrogen Mobility Centre and it will build on its previous research

Participants in the consortium will include researchers from the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies (CEET) at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, who will build on their previous research results. The Transport Research Centre is the main coordinator of the project which brings together 17 different partners.

"We will follow up on our previous project, where in cooperation with Správa železnic (the state-owned provider of national and regional railway infrastructure) we have been carrying out an inventory of train lines with alternative propulsion, i.e. either battery electric trains or trains with hydrogen propulsion. Within the framework of the national competence centre, we will now further develop these outputs and prepare more detailed technology proposals. Our task as energy engineers is to ensure that the solutions proposed by our colleagues are acceptable, efficient and realistic from an energy point of view," said Lukáš Prokop from the ENET Centre, which is part of CEET, on behalf of the Ostrava team.

Together with colleagues, they should be involved in two subtasks, the specific content of which is currently being specified by the scientists. The first is aimed at researching and developing equipment to demonstrate the basic principles of hydrogen technology. "The testing of which will be carried out during the first pilot projects. These are devices that will allow the production of hydrogen by electrolysis of water, and also with the opposite principle, where hydrogen will be used in fuel cells to generate electricity. Based on the results of these tests it will then be possible to proceed to system solutions," Prokop said. The second task is the development of software that will enable rapid simulation of these pilot installations, processing of large volumes of data and their evaluation in the form of energy balances or financial analysis.

The National Hydrogen Mobility Centre, which succeeded in the programme of TA CR National Competence Centre, is being established within the framework of the implementation of the Hydrogen Strategy for a Climate Neutral Europe and the Hydrogen Strategy of the Czech Republic. These documents reflect the objective of the European Green Deal, i.e. to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The competence centre will ensure the cooperation of domestic key players in this field, from public administration, to research organisations, to companies.

"This is another tool to accelerate the application of hydrogen technology in transport. All the partners, including us, have been active in the field of hydrogen mobility for a long time, and we will join together in a consortium. We are happy to be part of it, because it will allow us to go one step further," concluded Prokop.

The project is intended to support the accelerated deployment of hydrogen technologies, minimise the associated costs and promote a balanced production and consumption of hydrogen.

44 project proposals were submitted to the public call of the National Competence Centre and 18 have been accepted for support. VSB-TUO will be involved in 7 of the accepted proposals. CEET manages the National Centre for Energy and will participate in two other projects.

Text: Martina Šaradínová, PR specialist for R&D
Illustrative photo. Source: Canva