The “H2Revier” research project is a joint project aimed at developing and implementing the foundations for the establishment of fuel cell system production in the Rhineland. The market penetration of fuel cells is currently still hampered by high costs over the entire life cycle. These are largely determined by manufacturing costs and are mainly attributable to low production volumes, meaning that the total costs are currently hardly competitive due to expensive assembly and testing processes and unused economies of scale. A major cost driver here is the high variance in system design. In order to increase the marketability of fuel cells, production processes are to be researched and improved within the framework of this project. To this end, production and start-up planning for system assembly and testing will first be developed. The key aspects here are the scalability of the quantities and an economic feasibility study. As a result, a system testing concept will be developed and an end-of-line test bench designed for validation. The next project phase involves planning and implementing the ramp-up of system assembly and testing the concept developed in the previous phase. The final assembled fuel cell systems will then be tested on the end-of-line test bench and, if they pass, integrated into a demonstrator vehicle. The necessary overall system assembly and the end-of-line test benches for commissioning will be set up as part of this project and will serve as the basis for the detailed planning and design of a scaled fuel cell system production for up to 2,000 vehicles per year in collaboration with the project partners and other companies in the Rhineland region. In the long term, this number is to be increased further.

Source:
https://www.enargus.de/pub/bscw.cgi/?op=enargus.eps2&q=wasserstoff&m=1&v=10&s=7&y=1&id=17128665