Hydrogen powered fuel cell forklifts, field demonstration and durability studies

Forklifts constitute an early market for fuel cells technology. According to US Department of Energy, fuel cells will soon be commercially competitive and may take a significant market share. Still durability and cost targets are not reached, and therefor e this combination of R&D on durability issues with a profound fleet of forklifts in the field is a viable way to advance towards commercialisation. Coordinator for this project is Ludwig-Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH (D). Partners include H2Logic A/S (DK) Da nTruck (DK), TÜV SÜD (D), Technical University of Denmark, Linde AG (D), JRC (BE), SINTEF (NO) and ENEA (IT). With this strong consortium, the challenges will be met with Europe's best resources. In HyLIFT DEMO 30 forklifts will be tested over 2 years and 3 hydrogen refuelling sites will be established. A total of 4000 hours durability studies are to be carried out at SINTEF. SINTEF will also assist in conducting data acquisition from the Forklift field tests and validate reaching the performance targets on durability, efficiency and costs. This will in turn generate knowledge for development of 4th generation fuel cell and refuelling technologies. The duration of the project is 3 years and the total budget is 6 mill Euro. SINTEF is responsible for Work P ackage 6 entitled: Demonstration monitoring & target validation. SINTEF's share is 592 kEuro.