Survey of Denmark 2009

The Danish fuel cell industry is characterised by a good deal of co-operation between R&D organisations, the nascent supply chain, and end-user customers for a wide range of early market applications, including mCHP, UPS, and materials handling. Recognising that Denmark has in effect an entire domestic supply chain for high and low temperature PEM and SOFC, the public and private sectors are working together under the auspices of the Danish Fuel Cell Partnership  to translate R&D into commercial products. In this, Denmark bears the hallmarks of the Japanese fuel cell industry, where collaboration is key within the domestic fuel cell sector, as a means to first build a market, and only later introduce competition between players in the industry. One crucial difference compared to the Japanese industry is that there is very little overlap in terms of activities between the key players – this appears to be a deliberate policy in such a small country as Denmark. The Danish fuel cell industry is intricately associated with Denmark’s energy landscape, a landscape that is dominated by the two key pillars of North Sea oil and gas (an increasingly finite resource), and the wind industry, one of the world’s most successful renewable export industries. Seeking to reduce reliance on oil and gas, and also seeking to emulate the success of the wind industry, Denmark’s government takes the fuel cell industry increasingly seriously.

The syndiated version of this report contains an analysis of the supply chain, high temperature fuel cells, and 10-year market forecasts broken down by application, manufacturing, adoption, fuel and electrolyte.