Dec 12 2019
Hydrogène de France (HDF) becomes a French industrial company by launching its high-powered fuel cell production plant in Bordeaux. This plant, with an annual production capacity of 50 MW, will be the first in the world to mass produce high-powered PACs (greater than 1 MW) using PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) technology. The industrialization and standardization of these systems reduces their cost and improves significantly their reliability and maintenance.
This plant will produce under the brand name "HDF Industry". It will integrate the Fuel Cell stacks of Canadian company Ballard, which today has the most widely deployed technology in the world. This exclusive worldwide agreement allows HDF to offer high-powered FCs whose performance and prices are adapted to the energy market.
A worldwide ambition
HDF intends to play a pioneering role in the emerging hydrogen market. Hydrogen, considered by both industrialists and governments as one of the solutions for the energy transition, is developing in multiple directions, including mobility as well as stationary applications.
HDF's vision is based on the development of hydrogen as a fuel and a vehicle for storing electricity. Renewable energies have conquered a place in the world of energy by overcoming the challenge of competitiveness. HDF believes that the time has come to take on the next challenge, that of intermittency.
An industrial reality
HDF started its industrial program 3 years ago consulting the world's leading fuel cell companies. Ballard was selected as being the ideal partner, as they have demonstrated their experience, industrial capacity and stack lifetime. HDF's industrial plan has been developed with the ClearGen and CEOG projects and with the expertise of its employees.
The HDF Industry plant will have a production capacity of 50MW of Fuel Cell per year within 5 years.
Benefiting from Ballard's know-how and HDF's unique experience in industrial hydrogen projects, this French multimegawatt fuel cell plant has a sizeable lead in the market.
Damien Havard, President and Founder of HDF:
We are particularly pleased with this cooperation with Ballard. HDF industrializes reliable FCs at a price adapted to the market. The standardization of this strategic brick will allow the production of non-polluting and competitive electricity on a large scale. HDF provides the industrial solution that was missing to develop the massive storage of renewable energy. Our market is huge: this is the end of the intermittency of renewable energies!