LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sandia National Laboratories will host a workshop April 28 for industry and code development organizations designed to address research barriers to hydrogen-powered forklifts and other near-term fuel cell market applications.
The workshop will include a number of participants, including industry leaders from Plug Power, Nuvera Fuel Cells and Air Products who will address challenges they face in deploying new products. Plug Power develops, manufactures, integrates and services proprietary fuel cell solutions for pallet trucks, counterbalance rider trucks, narrow-aisle reach trucks and other industrial trucks. Nuvera Fuel Cells provides innovative fuel cell products for the material handling market, as well as cost effective on-site hydrogen generation and refueling equipment. Air Products is the world’s largest supplier of merchant hydrogen and an industry leader in hydrogen fuel infrastructure.
“This workshop is a rare opportunity for equipment manufacturers and integrators to come together with the code development community to discuss the challenges of a new, nonautomotive application space for hydrogen fuel cells,” said workshop organizer Daniel Dedrick, program manager for hydrogen codes and standards at Sandia. “Our intent is to populate the code development effort with those companies actually developing products and services, as those companies are the ones who really understand the operating environment and the technologies in question.”
Presentations by Plug Power, Nuvera Fuel Cells, and Air Products are expected to focus on product utilization and market transformation to hydrogen fuel cell systems. Code development agencies such as the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and CSA Standards will provide insight into existing gaps in hydrogen codes and standards.
The expected outcome of the workshop, said Dedrick, is for the code development organizations, the industrial stakeholders, and the R&D community to collectively identify the key areas of R&D that are necessary to enable the deployment of hydrogen fuel cell systems for a variety of everyday applications.
For more information on the workshop, code developers and hydrogen fuel cell systems, stakeholders may contact Sandia’s Daniel Dedrick at 925-294-1552, email dededri@sandia.gov.