H2IQ Hour: How IPHE is Fostering Global Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Collaboration and Coordination: Text Version

Below is the text version for the H2IQ Hour: How IPHE is Fostering Global Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Collaboration and Coordination, recorded on April 28, 2020.

Eric Parker, Fuel Cell Technologies Office:

All right. Good day everyone and welcome back to the H2IQ hour. Thanks for your patience. This is a webinar hosted by the US Department of Energy’s hydrogen and fuel cells program. These webinars aim to promote a better understanding of hydrogen and fuel cells and the work we fund to advance those technologies. As always if you’re active on social media we encourage you to share anything interesting or surprising or informative you get from these webinars with the H2IQ hashtag on your posts. And as always we’ll also be announcing more exciting topics soon.

As a disclosure this WebEx call is being recorded and will be posted on the DOE’s website and used internally. All attendees will be on mute throughout the webinar so please submit questions whenever you’d like via the Q&A box you should see in the bottom right of WebEx. We will cover those questions to the best of our ability during the Q&A portion at the end of the presentation. And so with that I would like to introduce today’s speakers. We have the director of DOE’s hydrogen and fuel cells program and current IPHE chair Sunita Satyapal and Tim Karlsson executive director and secretariat of the IPHE joining us as well. Hi Sunita and Tim.

Sunita Satyapal, Fuel Cell Technologies Office:

Hi Eric. Thank you.

Tim Karlsson, International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy:

Good morning.

Sunita Satyapal:

And if we go to the next slide, so I’ll go ahead and start. And again as Eric mentioned we have these increase your H2IQ webinars every month and we cover not just technical information but also programmatic information. And usually we have domestic audience and there’s been significant global activities on hydrogen. So today we thought we would provide a summary focusing on the international partnership for hydrogen and fuel cells in the economy, IPHE and how it’s fostering global hydrogen and fuel cells collaboration. And also like to acknowledge Tim Karlsson who is the executive director of the IPHE secretariat leading the charge for about five years now. And then also our cochair Toshi Shuri since it is 2:00 in the morning Japan real time we will just have this recording.

And if we go to the next slide to set the context for today’s presentation. I thought I’d share some of the international partnerships. The first one also on the left is government led partnership. And the first comprehensive partnership with the IEA actually was performed in the 1970s originally to address the oil crisis but rapidly covering this whole spectrum of energy issues, oil and gas, renewables. And it includes fuel cells and hydrogen through what’s called TCPs or technology collaboration programs at the research level. And the IEA also conducts policy analysis, reports, really prominent in terms of global international partnerships. And then in 2003 IPAG was formed and that was really the first government to government partnership specifically focused on hydrogen and fuel cells to accelerate progress globally. And so that was launched at the ministerial level, 19 countries, the European Commission collectively spending about a billion in funding.

And if you click one more time you can see a number of global partnerships. So in 2017 the hydrogen mission innovation challenge was formed. At the bottom, the mission innovations launched after the Paris Climate agreement in 2015 really focused on increasing investments in clean energy innovation globally. And the specific challenge, innovation challenge on hydrogen was launched by Australia in 2017 with global partners. And then at the very top you can see, in the middle you can see the hydrogen energy ministerial. That was launched in 2018, led by Japan. Again very high level ministerial visibility looking at increasing coordination specifically in investments in hydrogen. And then most recently in the top left, the clean energy ministerial which also includes a number of activities across the spectrum of energy issues have the hydrogen initiative that was launched in 2019 with Canada as the lead. And so you can see increasing number of global partnerships interest in hydrogen. And so coordination is obviously key which we are all doing. We are part – from the US perspective part of all of these various initiatives.

And if you click one more time on the industry side again to provide the historical context there have been a number of industry organizations, associations worldwide, regional, national. And then the critical piece is codes and standards development organizations, from the regulatory standpoint, safety of vehicles and so forth. The UN global technical regulations. That whole landscape that’s been primarily industry led has been ongoing for decades.

But then I’ll highlight if you click one more time. Again so everyone is aware the hydrogen council was one of the foremost partnerships that was recently launched 2017, bringing together over 80 CEOs from global companies investing substantial multibillion investments, specifically in hydrogen. So a number of recent reports coming out there. And finally one last click. In terms of a new example, again there have been a number of very noteworthy examples of hydrogen safety activities, Hi Safe, ICHS, safety panels, European Commission has done a lot. But again this is really the newest example of an industry led partnership specially the center for hydrogen safety again sharing information and best practices. And so this provides really kind of a snapshot of the entire landscape and all the moving parts. And if you click finally one last time, increasing priority at the bottom of the screen is coordination, leveraging. How do we ensure that we’re avoiding duplication, truly accelerating progress to enable widespread commercialization.

So today if you go to the next slide we will be covering for your awareness what is going on within the international partnership for hydrogen and fuel cells in the economy. And again this is a global partnership. You can see 19 countries, European Commission. There are a number of other countries in the process of joining. And I would like to first and foremost acknowledge all of the stakeholders that have been involved in all these partnerships including IPHE and the past chairs which included the US, the Canada, Germany. Japan and France and now the US and Japan again with a number of other countries is part of the core team for IPHE. And the goal in many ways is really to serve as an enabler to increase the adoption of hydrogen and fuel cells in the economy.

So some of the main priorities are coordinating across the different partnerships among members, sharing information at the global level as well as regionally. So we share information on our respective program policies, various initiatives, discuss the status. We meet formally twice a year. We share lessons learned, best practices, develop updates on what is happening in hydrogen and fuel cells in the various countries. There are two working groups specifically on regulation codes and standards and safety. So you’ll hear more from Tim as well as education and outreach. There have been a number of policy forums and really engaging relevant stakeholders, looking at the targets where the gaps in the R&D. What more must be done to accelerate progress? And most recently you will hear about a task force that was formed on hydrogen production analysis to enable and facilitate international trade of hydrogen. So the boxes show the top priorities. Again starts with sharing information and coordinating activities. That helped to inform our government R&D activities and fosters collaboration.

So to have access to more information if you click one more time you will see the website iphe.net. Again social media, you can follow see information on what is happening globally with hydrogen and fuel cells and specifically within these partnerships. So with that as a high level introduction that provides the context for IPHE and this growing landscape of various partnerships, I will now turn it over to Tim Karlsson. And we are very pleased to be able to host him again as the executive director of the secretariat for IPHE. So I’ll turn it over to you Tim. Thank you again for joining the DOE H2IQ webinar.

Tim Karlsson:

Well, thank you very much Sunita. That was a great overview. And I will be spending the next 20 minutes or so providing some more details on the information that you provided. I would like to thank the United States Department of Energy and specifically Dr. Satyapal, Sunita and your team at the fuel cell and technologies office for this opportunity. It’s a real pleasure for me to present this information on the IPHE and how we’re helping to foster global collaboration. As you mentioned my name is Tim Karlsson and I am the executive director of the IPHE secretariat.

Next slide please. A little bit of context. In our conversations and in the discussions that you’ll see that follows there are a number of countries taking lots of very interesting actions. The underlying key drivers are the four that we often see and hear about. And energy security, energy system resiliency and stability, economic growth, and environmental benefit. And each of those are weighed differently within each of the country strategies. You can see some are focusing more on the energy issues. Others on the opportunity around innovation and technology. And yet others the key drivers are environmental benefits. On the energy security of course it’s the security of supply of the energy, the4 diversity of the resource where they’re getting their energy is a key issue.

On the resiliency and stability it’s the role that hydrogen can play in providing services, grid services, storage combining with renewable energy, providing a window into sanctor coupling and also enabling the distributed generation options in the grid. For other countries the key driver is around innovation and technology leadership. There are new products being developed and firms that are innovative leaders. There’s opportunities for supply chain growth, jobs and economic opportunities there. There’s – then they’re also looking for impacts on the transportation and other industries, etcetera that they see within their economies as key drivers. And then the other one the environmental benefits. In some jurisdictions, it’s local air quality. What are the criteria air contaminants and addressing those kinds of issues? Often it’s related to climate change and how do they make their significant emissions reductions related to their obligations that they have submitted to. And in other jurisdictions it’s around noise pollution, local issues like that.

Next slide please. So what is different now? What’s really – we’re starting to see some real action and some real activity. And what were some of the triggers that make it different today? Next. There’s a few items and I’ll just quickly run through them here. The unprecedented reduction in the cost of the solar energy and power generation there. This is leading to record low power purchase agreement prices and at utility scale. And this is really an opportunity that suddenly renewable energies is moving into the grid space.

Next. So this is the example here. And this is providing an opportunity for hydrogen production and storage. Next slide. Again on the wind side, similarly, cost reductions just enormous over the last decade or less. I think the decline has been more than expected. And so this is another area where suddenly renewables variable generation is moving into the as a key component or as a component in the national grid. Next. So again purchasing price agreements for on shore wind power and hydrogen can help avoid the curtailment. And we often hear about curtailment obligations anecdotally and more directly. And how can generators take advantage of their capital assets more effectively? And that’s where hydrogen is coming into play.

Next. Then the characteristics around storage. The ability of hydrogen to act as a large scale storage capacity and time shifting characteristic. The hydrogen is then monetize to service the electricity from the grid. It can help manage the system. In some cases in remote and off grid applications. And for example there’s very interesting applications in remote mining communities, etcetera where they’re using renewable energy generation in combination with hydrogen to manage their grid and to make a real business case there. So the decreased costs in renewables and storage characteristics are helping move renewable energy from in addition to the grid to a component of the baseload. So that’s really making a difference these days. And then it’s also opening up the opportunities for sector integration. That is getting renewable energy beyond just the energy grid into the broader economy. Next slide, please.

There’s also the reality that there are commercial hydrogen and fuel cell technologies now available. We have commercial products by the leading OEMs, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, and the Nicola with the V2D truck. Rail is starting to become an application with the regional service in Germany which still needs much electrification. And so there’s a real opportunity there. The UK and other jurisdictions also now looking at trains. Fuel cell buses, they are – we’ve seen those rolling out in numerous cities around the world and taking their role in the transit system. We have examples of tuggers and material handling units. And I think in the US we’re one of the early adopters of fuel cell technologies in the materials handling space and really showed the way there. Also examples in the marketplace now on combined heat and power. The any farm examples in Japan with almost 300,000 combined heat and power units installed there.

Next slide. Other examples where industry and government are starting to reach out and explore and understand the real opportunities for hydrogen across multiple industries. We have Germany with its power to gas using the renewables and moving that into the power grid. We have examples in Austria with the steel manufacturers working with the power utility there in Austria putting in place an electrolyzer for the generation of clean hydrogen to use in the steel manufacturing in the annealing process now but potentially more broadly in the future. We have examples where Japan now is launching the world’s first liquid hydrogen carrier ship and will bring hydrogen from Australia to Japan.

These actions by industry are really moving the file forward. The largest fuel cell energy and heat park in Korea, 60 megawatts in place. I’ll talk more about the Netherlands and the really interesting vision and decisions being made there now on moving to renewables and using hydrogen as the engager. And then of course _____ and it’s recent decision to commission the salt cavern in Texas as an energy storage medium. These are all examples of large industry with government support in some cases taking the next steps in moving forward on hydrogen,

Next slide. So these are all examples here. Industry has also been looking in a bigger picture way as well. And so the hydrogen council has commissioned a study by McKenzie identifying the huge opportunities across the economy. And you’ll see some of the potential pathways in the scale and scope for hydrogen in power generation obviously and in transportation, industrial obligations and in the built environment. So moving it right across the economy as a whole.

So all of these actions and activities are leading to high level of conversations and discussions on hydrogen at the ministerial level. And as Sunita mentioned up from we have the hydrogen energy ministerial events both in 2018 and 2019. And at the 2019 hydrogen and energy ministerial there was the discussion around the global action agenda which I will provide more detail on later. There was at the G20 ministerial in Japan reference to hydrogen in the communicate that came out of that event as well as many side events related to hydrogen as well during the G20. And as mentioned the clean energy ministerial announced the new hydrogen initiative in May of 2019. So lots of activity at the high level, ministerial level as well is going on now.

Next slide please. I’d just like to spend a few minutes talking – I mentioned about the four key criteria, key drivers and how their weight varies and is in the mix in the policy structure that each country puts together. And so I’d like to just give a few examples of countries around the world and what are some of their drivers. In the case of Austria it’s very interesting in that they have a unique location as a potential energy hub in the central European area. They have dominated by clean electricity so lots of hydro and wind generation. And as I mentioned the _____ are putting in the hydrogen generation for the steel process. And there’s a real opportunity to ramp that up and use hydrogen in the longer term as the reducing agent in the steel making process.

In Austria they have a vision of the integrated system and they are just announced recently that they are developing a new national strategy now. And for them they see not only the energy grid and the steel industry but they’re also global leader sin supply chain in the transportation sector and industry. Ans so becoming expertise and capable in the hydrogen space is very important for Austria. Next.

In the case of France they do have a national strategy. But an interesting characteristic is the regions are also taking a real leadership role. And there in France of course they use nuclear energy and are adding renewable energy often now. And the regions are taking a keen interest in hydrogen and are using the concept around the idea of the hydrogen valley such as over in Rhone-Alpes for example. Where they are looking at focusing on transportation fleets with the hub infrastructure, generation of clean hydrogen and with the fleet and hub creating the critical point source load demand for the hydrogen. So that’s part of their strategy and rolling out the use of – broadening the use of their clean electricity into other sectors. Next please.

In the case of the Netherlands – and we’ve referenced the project that was announced earlier for the ten megawatts of wind, gigawatts of wind. In fact the drivers in the case of the Netherlands is the reality that in the north, in the __ region the terrain, the ground is subsiding. And that subsidence is linked to natural gas extraction. And so the government has – the government has made a long term decision that they will move away from natural gas extraction. And because of the subsidence issue and in fact earthquakes as well. And so the question then becomes ok, how do they take advantage of the capital assets that are in the ground. And how do they see themselves going forward in the energy industry.

What are – and how do they meet their climate goals. How do they maintain their jobs and their economy? So they see hydrogen from renewable energy generation and supporting that through refurbishment of their existing natural gas grid network. And they’re using that and developing that strategy and working with their neighbor countries of Germany, the ______ region and other countries, France, and other countries in continuing to be a key energy source but also chemical and industrial structure capacity is maintained using hydrogen from a new input source.

Next slide. Next. In the case of Australia they are a large energy exporter to the Asian market and they also are looking at hydrogen as a real opportunity. Mentioned briefly the export of liquified hydrogen from Australia to Japan. And the ship is being commissioned now to do that. That source is actually going to be from coal with carbon capture and storage to capture the carbon. But Australia is very much looking to being an energy exporter and but using its natural capital asset being sunshine, energy. And so you hear Australia now coming forward with the concept of exporting sunshine as their tag line.

And then next please. In the case of South Africa – South Africa is a member of the IPHE and it’s from their perspective they are the global leader in the production of platinum. So they produce 80 percent of the globe’s platinum. And so from their initial view it was how do we take advantage of that natural asset in this new energy space, in this new energy world? And so they’ve set up research institutes to build on and understand how they can add value to that natural resource. Beneficiation is the term they use. How can they benefit from that natural asset that they have? And so they set up the structure. And so that is driving a lot of their strategy and thinking around hydrogen. But more recently they are seeing it as applications for energy management and resiliency in remote communities and also in mining applications as well in their country.

Next please. So those are just some examples of the countries. Here’s – there is a broadening. While each have their drivers there is a broadening vision on hydrogen. And it’s around the world. We have in just the last couple of years we’ve had the road map commissioned by the fuel cell’s and hydrogen’s joint undertaking in Europe. We’ve had the future of hydrogen written by the IEA that was tabled at the G20 meeting in Japan in 2019. We have the US roadmap by your industry led roadmaps as well. Recently we’ve had the Japanese government’s revision to the basic hydrogen strategy in March 2019 putting down very aggressive targets for Japan. Korea also in the fall tabled its national strategy also with very aggressive targets as well for them.

As I mentioned Australia is looking keenly at hydrogen as a way to export and manage their energy systems. And they have recently released their national hydrogen strategy in November 2019. And those to come just to keep your eyes out. Germany is finalizing its new strategy. It has been an avid, an active and engaged in hydrogen for many years and now they’re coming with a new revised strategy soon. New Zealand has a green paper out in consultation for its strategy. And again South Africa is finalizing its strategy as well. So there are lots of visions and strategies being developed with aggressive targets being tabled.

Next. And I’d like to flag that at the hydrogen energy ministerial there was a ministerial agreement on the global action agenda which has tabled an aspirational target of 10 million mobility systems and 10,000 hydrogen refueling stations within 10 years. These are some of the aspirational targets that are now being tabled. Next.

Just on that global action agenda, some of the detail. You see the high level themes on the one side and then a series of subareas. These recommend a framework that ministers agreed to at the 2019 HEM for action by countries. And the IPHE is contributing not only to the supporting the activities of the hydrogen energy ministerial and the other initiatives as Sunita mentioned up front but also is looking at where are the priorities, specifically in those subareas. And we are now going through a priority setting process with IPHE member countries to determine which areas within those subareas the IPHE should focus its efforts and take collaborative actions.

Next slide please. So focusing on specifics around for the IPHE. I’d really like to flag for you the wealth of information. And I’ll come back to this again a couple of times. The wealth of information and resources that are available on the IPHE website at IPHE,net. You can see the members span the globe. There are activities and developments going on in each of the member countries. They are taking actions that meet their needs and unique circumstances. And so they do vary from country to country. But it is actions right across the board in summation. There’s more than a third of a million of stationary fuel cells now in place. There are more than 400 refueling stations now in operation around the world. We have 15,000 fuel cell electric vehicles so there’s tangible product on the road that you and people can see. And there’s more than a gigawatt of fuel cell shipped since the beginning of 2019. So action is underway. There is tangible product on the ground and the momentum is rapidly increasing.

Next slide. So some of the activities and accomplishments for the IPHE. As was mentioned the secretariat does work to coordinate with the other initiatives and partnerships including the clean energy ministerial, the mission innovation, the hydrogen energy ministerial, IEA, the international renewable energy agency as well is looking at hydrogen as well as the hydrogen council and the world economic forum is also looking at hydrogen now. So there is quite a mix of initiatives underway and so our role here is to help collaborate with an inform and share information with all these different initiatives to lever and to reduce and avoid duplication when possible.

The IPHE does focus on – we have two standing working groups. And it’s important to highlight I think that some work is being done by the working groups and producing materials and others the working groups are working with others as we say to lever and facilitate and contribute to the activities and success of the other activities that are under way. So for example developing codes and standard compendiums to identify gaps and look for opportunities to harmonize across multiple countries. That’s an activity that’s ongoing. The emphasis is around mobility in infrastructure right now. And so that’s a key activity that and product that the regulation codes, standards, and safety working group is working on now. We’re also working on promoting safety information sharing and lessons learned. It’s a very important thing and I’ll come back to safety again further on. With both the international conference on hydrogen safety and the center for hydrogen safety as well and Hi Safe, all these organizations and also with the in European Commission the hydrogen incident and accident database materials and the H2 tools.

These are all things that the regulations, codes, standards, and safety working group is using, encouraging, leveraging, and helping to facilitate and work within moving safety issues forward. They support research priority workshops that have gone on. And in fact also reports for example on tunnels and priorities. That’s one working group. On the other side we have the education and outreach working group which is also very crucial in moving the and accelerating the development and deployment of hydrogen in the economy. Part of the work as we meet, the IPA team meets twice a year at the steering committee and at that time we do updates of the country profiles. And I’ll give more detail on those but it’s what are the policies, programs, initiatives, deployments that are going on, recent developments there.

We also host policy forums during our steering committee meeting weeks that engage industry, government, researchers, policy developers and nongovernment organizations to discuss the key issues around hydrogen. We have a newsletter now in outreach and also social media activities as well. We do do webinars and those, I’ll highlight those, country specific updates. We now have a student outreach. So this is another engagement broadening the understanding within the public at large which will be very important for hydrogen and in fact I’ll reference the student challenge coming up. And we now have a fellowship program, a pilot fellowship program initiated.

Next slide please. The other area we are working on which is very important is the hydrogen production analysis task force. And this was a key issue raised by governments an industry. And it’s about around the quantification of the emissions related to hydrogen production. The goal is to develop a mutually agreed to analytic methodology for determining the GHG emissions and other emissions associated with a unit of hydrogen production. And the idea, the goal here is that the application of the methodology will help facilitate market valuation and global trade include hydrogen by recommending a common approach that countries can adapt and use at the members discretion based on their unique circumstances. Just some of – the image here you can see the issues around how might this be put together and what might be the methodologies. There are a number of them that are out there. What are the common characteristics. What are the boundary condition issues. How might they fit together? These are all the questions that this task for is now looking at and will make recommendations on.

Next slide please. As I mentioned safety is a key issue and the IPHE steering committee is really moving forward on promoting the issues of safety. And one of the key activities that has come forward is the standing up of the center for hydrogen safety by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers but also with the support and the engagement of IPHE, the hydrogen council, many, many partners in industry and government, the European Hydrogen Safety Panel. There are others as well and this is one.

Next. This information that the Center for Hydrogen Safety has been – the information has been translated into a number of languages and there’s lots of information available there. Next slide please. So I’d like to just spend the last couple of minutes on information around and how you can engage with the IPHE team. Next please.

We have a newsletter and so this newsletter highlights some of the country updates from our recent meeting in Seoul in the fall. You see there the events that we held there with the student engagement at the university and the policy economy forum actually at the department precinct in Seoul. So there’s information on that as well our visit to the Green Institute of Science and Technology and their safety center as well. Next. So for all this, to get this information as I mentioned please go and you can subscribe to the IPHE to get this newsletter at IPHE.net. Next.

I wanted to flag also the opportunity for the engagement, the challenge, infographic challenge for students. And this is an initiative for students ages 13 to 18 in IPHE member countries. And we have the possible topics. It’s quite open, basics of fuel cells and hydrogen. The status of the technologies in the student’s country, applications, the history. So it’s quite a – the scale and scope of the opportunity for the infographics is broad. Obviously, criteria around the content, the data and things, creativity and shareability. So next. The first round entry is for July 31st. There will be a second round of entries will be for October 8th. One more click please. And there’s also an opportunity to join the IPHE youth group and there’s the details there.

And one more please. Next. So this I just want to highlight again the IPHE website. There’s lots of information, great information there on hydrogen from the various countries. It’s updated regularly. One I would like to flag for you is the country profiles that I did mention earlier that you’ll see. It talks about the initiatives, new initiatives, programs, policies. What are the R&D activities that are going on? What about deployment and events? Any changes or updates in the rights, codes, and standards, provides data. And then it also has the member statements that are made at each of the meetings. So you can see what the countries are stating as being their key drivers and issues of the day. And so these are for all the IPHE member countries. They are often updated every six months. Sometimes it’s less depending on the developments in the member countries. We also have webinars on countries also available and a number of other information webinars. South Africa, Germany, Japan, Brazil. These are all also available on our site.

Next please. And with that these are the contact details, both the website and to communicate with us. I would like to thank you again to the fuel cell technology office and Dr. Satyapal, Sunita and her team for the help of putting this event together but also for your work over the years with the IPHE. It’s just been phenomenal. And with this I would like to thank you for your attention and draw this presentation to a close. Eric?

Sunita Satyapal:

Great. Well, thank you Tim. And this is Sunita again. And I would also on behalf of DOE and the entire IPHE as well as the other international partnerships thank Tim Karlsson. He has been a really strong advocate and done a lot of work again coordinating with all the various partnerships, supporting the steering committee meetings, the working groups. Really thank him for all of his efforts and commitment, dedication over the years. Also should mention just a long history both on the government side as well as industry experience. So thank you Tim again for everything. So hopefully everyone has seen sort of the big picture, some of the important international partnerships, the key drivers as Tim mentioned. Again multiple different drivers, energy security, resilience, emissions, economic prosperity, opportunity, innovation, growth.

As Tim highlighted we’re seeing lots of exciting developments in terms of hydrogen. And very specific information, the latest information on the global action agenda, the working groups, synthesizing information, comparing road maps. That’s a key priority. Assessing the gaps, really helping to define what should be our respective national programs. What should we be focusing on and how do we collectively accelerate progress? And then as he mentioned the various audiences, the very specific activities. Again all of these countries meet and they vote on what are the highest priorities in terms of what can government do to help move the needle and accelerate progress. So much of what you heard from Tim is really just fresh in formation, continuously being updated. And I would especially like to thank the working group members. The task force leads again lots of activity there to see how we can progress. So please stay tuned to the information.

And I would also like to acknowledge number of folks here, Vanessa, Eric, Amanda, the student infographic challenge that was launched on Earth Day. Again as a reminder, hope you can publicize that information and then we can showcase the winners on the website. Again lots of activities there engaging multiple audiences ranging from high level political off the policy side. Also to education outreach in terms of the youth chapter. And so again a big thank you to all of the elders who have been involved and I will turn it over to Eric to see if there are any questions from the audience.

Eric Parker:

Yes. Thank you Sunita and thank you Tim for your presentation. We’ll now begin the Q&A portion of the webinar. And I’ll just address a couple of things at the top real quick. So again if you haven’t already please submit your question in the Q&A box of WebEx. I see many of you already have. Thank you. I’ll also remind everyone this will be posted as a recording and the downloadable slides on the SCTO website for consumption later. I saw a few of you were asking about that. And yeah, definitely echoing Tim’s call to register or rather sign up for the IPHE newsletter so you can hear more about what IPHE is doing. So with that I’d like to start with some, we’re getting some questions around current events that kind of fall together that either of you can tackle with both the oil price fluctuation you mentioned at the top and the global pandemic. Many of the attendees were wondering how you see this effecting the R&D and commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies globally.

Sunita Satyapal:

I can start maybe with that. And we definitely have already had various discussions internationally on what countries are doing in response to COVID-19, what the opportunities are. There’s definitely interest in terms of resiliency. Again hydrogen and fuel cells provide flexibility, opportunity for resiliency both in terms of stationary power. Obviously, some countries are refocusing their efforts on emissions reduction. So those discussions are ongoing in terms of what the potential opportunities are, also int terms of jobs. And some companies are in fact refurbishing. Some of you may have seen announcements where they’re actually refurbishing ventilators. There’s also fuel cell technology for instance membranes that are now being used to make masks for emergency response workers and hospitals. These nanofibers are also applicable to masks. So again I think across the board that activity is in process. And so I think that’s a good question there and we look forward to staying in touch with you.

Eric Parker:

Great. So we’ve also got some query on IPHE itself. And Tim if you don’t mind addressing quickly what’s the process like for joining IPHE? Who is able to join? And how does IPHE work with the member countries to identify member representatives, etcetera, if you want to talk a little bit to that.

Tim Karlsson:

That’s great. Thanks for that Eric. Yeah. So the IPHE is a government to government organization so we’re a partnership. It is the trigger is that a government, a ministry is working on or dealing with hydrogen and would like to reach out and engage on the international, with the international community. And so some of the criteria to join. As I say it is for the government that they are working on hydrogen and fuel cells. They have a strategy or a plan or ideas around that and that they are willing to come to the table and contribute ideas and share their information and move the needle forward in increasing the deployment and development and deployment of hydrogen fuel cells and technologies. So the idea it is for a government and to government. They indicate, they show their participation and interest in hydrogen and then that they are also willing to contribute to move the file forward internationally.

So from a nuts and bolts perspective that’s what it is. It’s governments join. The IPHE though does – a crucial component is engaging with industry and so that is also an important of a number of our activities. And so for example at the steering committee meetings we do run the policy forums. We have a policy forum that has quite a heavy focus on hearing from and understanding the issues that industry are dealing with and have. We have a segment for government as well. So we do that engagement. We also often have keynote speakers from the leading industries in that region. And so that also helps inform us about what are the key issues that are going forward in the IPHE.

Eric Parker:

Great.

Sunita Satyapal:

And maybe also just to reiterate for those that have specific questions it really is not that difficult to join. There are a number of countries that are very interested and in the process that as we highlighted media at IPHE.net. Feel free and Tim can, a secretary can follow up if there’s interest.

Eric Parker:

Yes. And you can also find information on past and future IPHE meetings on that website as well if you are interested. So I have another question on IPHE’s kind of role and activities. We have someone asking here how – oh sorry. I just lost the question. Does IPHE contribute to helping to align various R&D agendas from its members countries? So if you participate in definition review meetings, you help coordinate between say for SCHJU, METE, DOE, etcetera?

Sunita Satyapal:

Yes. Definitely. So I can start and then maybe Tim can jump in. So that’s a great question and that was really the one of the original objectives when IPHE was launched. So facilitating that type of collaboration. So we meet with our counterparts within for instance SCHJU, the European Commission, METE in Japan, all of the various countries that are members. And we have in the past conducted assessments, really looked at our various programs. We’ve shared that information, assessed where the gaps are. What are some of the opportunities? We’ve actually had workshops in past years looking at specific targets. So we have targets depending on the markets and the applications of what’s needed to be competitive. And we’ve actually developed priority matrices. We’ve served on each other’s – in our case we have our annual merit review, AMR. So there’s very strong coordination. I think that’s one of the main benefits there over the years in working with our counterparts in all of these various countries to help define and optimize and refine the government funded programs.

Tim Karlsson:

And maybe I would add a little bit on. The role of the IPHE as – and the opportunity for sharing of information and lessons learned and also about the strategies and approaches that the countries are considering and putting in place. That’s one of the key, I think another of the key benefits of the IPHE is to have that conversation, understand what are the drivers behind the decisions. And often sometimes you’ll find it’s regulatory or legal issues that are driving certain approaches in countries. And it’s important to have that conversation and understand that as other countries are strategizing and putting together their plans so that they can dovetail or understand what works and what would work in their particular circumstances.

Eric Parker:

Great. Got another good question here. Could you please provide further details on the methodology for quantification of GHG emissions that the HGPA is developing in relation to hydrogen production as like the life cycle assessment methodologies usually being used for this type of analysis?

Tim Karlsson:

Well, right now the approach – I’ll start and then Sunita of course. The approach is to – its twofold right now to begin with is come to a common understanding of the terminology and the words actually that are being used. And for those that are in standards development and things words are and how you use the words are very important so that’s one part of the work. And so the idea is to understand are there different terminology being used for the same thing. So that’s part of the initial work. And then the next phase that the task force is going through is to gather information on the different approaches that have been tabled in different countries. So in the slides for example we have the French association has come forward with a model. The UK government biz has come forward with an approach. The EU standards organization has also another version or approach.

And then Certify, some will be familiar with Certify which is an initiative that received some funding support through the SEA’s JU and so they have another version. Then there’s the California life cycle approach as well. So these are all being looked at and evaluated and trying to understand where there are commonalities and approaches that would be useful and in identifying and quantifying the emissions that would come from hydrogen. And what are the boundary conditions is another key question. Where might we pose or suggestion the boundary conditions are? And the idea is to come to a consensus around what could be used. It will be for the individual countries to decide how they want to define what the hydrogen might be. That’s their unique circumstances. But we’re working toward a common understanding of what that quantification methodology would be based on what is out there now and what might be the common approach the countries could use.

Eric Parker:

Ok. I think we have time for just one more question. This one is for Sunita. Is there any consensus across national road maps on the timing or balance between green and blue hydrogen?

Sunita Satyapal:

That’s a great question Eric. And I think there are number of studies. In fact at the G20 as Tim mentioned IEA report, future of hydrogen come out with the hydrogen council. And so although there’s no global consensus in terms of everybody’s roadmaps as you heard from Tim there are a number of different drivers nationally. And so in some cases again the main value of hydrogen is you can produce it from diverse domestic resources in any nation.

Eric Parker:

Ok.

Sunita Satyapal:

Oh ok. I see we are out of time. But I think those are questions that are currently being addressed in terms of timing and the balance of green, blue, grey, again low cost hydrogen with CCF in some cases as well as electrolysis. I think looking at what is the value proposition that will help to drive that for sustainable growth of hydrogen is really the key there. So I’ll end with that. I know we’re out of time. But turn it back to Eric.

Eric Parker:

Yes. Thank you and thanks for all the great questions everybody. That does do it for today. If we didn’t get to your questions please feel free to email directly and we’ll do our best to get to it. But with that I’ll wrap up. So a big thank you to our presenters for a thoughtful and informative presentation today on IPHE. That does conclude the H1IQ webinar hour. I’d like to thank everyone for joining and remind you that the webinar and slide again will be available online soon. And I encourage everyone to sign up for the FCTO monthly newsletter to find out about more of these webinars as well as the IPHE newsletter and to join us on social media using the H2IQ hashtag. And so with that have a great rest of your week everyone. And goodbye.

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