This year’s general meeting of the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, or DWV for short, took place in Erlangen, Germany, on May 12, 2017. Since there were no board elections to be held, the main issue was the association’s new focus. But even an arguably debate-worthy point such as this one was not met with great enthusiasm by DWV members. Werner Diwald, chair of the German association, outlined management’s ideas of establishing new expert committees (besides performing energy) or an internal group to further professionalize the organization. Many of the members in attendance, however, did not seem too intent on thoroughly exploring the issues or providing their own suggestions.
One of the people who spoke before members at the meeting was Stefan Müller, parliamentary state secretary at the federal education ministry. Müller, an incumbent Erlangen councilman who has announced to run again in this year’s general election in Germany, presented the DWV Innovation Award for the most outstanding master’s thesis to Melanie Miller, whose research at the Technical University of Munich focused on reducing the amount of catalyst materials used in PEM electrolyzers. Jan Michalski received the award for the best dissertation. He too had researched at TU Munich: In partnership with Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik, Michalski examined the role that energy storage could play in integrating renewables into the German energy market.
New DWV publication
Just in time for the meeting, the DWV published its revised and updated report on “Hydrogen and Fuel Cells as Strong Partners of Renewable Energy Systems.” The 32-page document (see fig.) was created jointly with Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik and is available for free at the DWV.
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