Day 4 – Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Group Exhibit

Footfall is still up and the days at least feel longer, though this is probably more down to the infamous networking evenings! Before that is taken out of context one of the real successes of these evenings is that all exhibitors mingle over drinks and food and still talk business. During the day you can talk to customers and at night find yourself sitting side-by-side with the CEO of SFC Smart (who turns out to be a very nice personable chap). This breaking down of barriers between companies is really important as the industry is still far too young to be fighting each year.

Thursday is traditionally the day that the Hannover Fair lets students in and whilst there are roving packs this has not stopped the real business getting done.

First thing I dropped in to Heliocentris which is primarily known for education has now moved into systems and projects. With over 12 years of experience in the fuel cell industry this company has jumped from 20 staff only a couple of years ago to 45, has listed in the German stock exchange and has taken the step of releasing a solar / fuel cell hybrid unit for off-grid power. To ensure the highest quality they have relationships with a couple of the best known stack manufacturers and are also working with companies of electrolysers. When I asked what the next steps for the company were it was clear that they will continue to develop strategic connections with other companies in the 100 watt to 1 kW size project range and will also continue to shift more and more into projects and systems work.

Moving down the supply chain completely to a company new too me, and the Hannover Fair, Metro Mold are a mid sized American company that works on molding and high speed machining. Impressively this company has been making molds for the fuel cell industry since 1997.  One of the major benefits of their production process is that there is no minimum order. We are aware that some supply chain companies now will only work with large minimum orders but Metro Mold appear to be very open to producing, 1, 100 or a 10,000 and give the customer the tipping price points at each level.

Another new company is In House Engineering which is here showing a fully functional 5kWe mCHP unit. It is easy to forget that hr Germany based Callux programme does not include all companies in Germany developing mCHP and in House is one of them. The unit is a low temp, grid tied, PEM based system running of natural gas which will go into field trials in Germany in next two years and then commercial in 2012. More on this in the full event report.

Well that is it for Day 4. Tomorrow, the last day for this year, will hopefully see me listening to some of the presentations, as well as giving my own at 1.20pm!