State Secretary Norbert Barthle visited fem to find out more about hydrogen - the energy source that is predicted to have a great future.
The timing for State Secretary Norbert Barthle's visit to the fem research institute in Schwäbisch Gmünd could not have been better: Barthle, recently appointed by Federal Minister Dr. Gerd Müller as Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Energy, met to exchange views with Institute Director Dr. Andreas Zielonka, who was in the middle of preparing the kick-off meeting for two new research projects. The topic of the projects: the energy carrier hydrogen - more precisely: how is it produced, how is it stored and transported, and how is it ultimately used? Central questions that are also at the heart of Norbert Barthle's remit at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and which the fem is now increasingly addressing as part of the development of recyclable hydrogen pressure tanks and high-performance fuel cell modules - keyword hydrogen bicycle.
A project that met with great interest from State Secretary Barthle, because within the National Hydrogen Strategy (NWS) adopted by the German government, the BMZ is responsible, among other things, for setting up demonstration projects on green hydrogen involving production sites in partner countries of German development cooperation. Barthle clearly emphasized the fundamental importance of the topic of hydrogen: "Climate change poses new challenges for all of humanity. We need an energy transition in Germany and worldwide in order to successfully master these challenges. Green hydrogen is a key raw material for a successful energy transition, especially as a storage medium for renewable energies. Institutions like the fem make an important contribution to this."
For the fem, whose main task is practice-oriented research and development work for local SMEs and industry, technology transfer is a key to success: "In a competitive environment, it is important to make practicable research results available to industry quickly and directly," says Institute Director Zielonka. To make this even more successful in the future, the fem initiated and co-founded the Hydrogen Research and Transfer Alliance within the German Federation of Industrial Research Associations (AiF). The aim of the alliance is to coordinate R&D activities within the AiF and accelerate the transfer of knowledge to areas of application.
"Without reasonable funding for the two important programs supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics - the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM) and Industrial Collective Research (IGF) - these goals cannot be achieved," Zielonka points out. Although great efforts are currently being made to mitigate the sometimes dramatic effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy, applied industrial research is unfortunately being neglected. Research projects that have already been approved cannot be started due to a lack of funding. This is frustrating for researchers, but above all it causes an unnecessary backlog in technology transfer. Zielonka's final request to State Secretary Barthle: a strong voice in the German capital that stands up for application-oriented research.
