The Status of SOFC R&D in the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking Program

The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) was set up in 2008 to accelerate the development of fuel cells and hydrogen technologies in Europe towards commercialization from 2015 onwards. To reach this target the FCH JU intends to bring together resources under a cohesive public-private partnership to ensure commercial focus, to match RTD activities to industry's needs and expectations and to scale-up and intensify links between the Industry Community and the Research Community. The applications are open to all fuel cells technologies, SOFC being mostly developed for the stationary applications, including back-up powers and APUs for transportation (trucks, planes). There are different groups working in Europe and supported partially by the FCH JU on the SOFC technology. By supporting such a project portfolio, FCH JU is going to reach most of the objectives set-up at European level mainly in terms of potential reduction of costs through sufficient number of units demonstrated across Europe in transport and stationary applications. The EU public support will continue for the next period of 2014-2020 for activities with an advanced TRL, moving towards market penetration of the FCH technologies.