IMS ECUBES (a Norwegian company with experience in grid balancing) and Arcola Energy (British hydrogen and fuel cell experts) have announced a joint venture to help address grid stability and vehicle emissions in Europe and South Asia. While the companies didn’t talk about hydrogen specifically, it is obvious from Arcola’s involvement that hydrogen will be playing a key role in their plans, while IMS ECUBES expertise will allow Arcola to scale-up their ambitions.
The announcement was made today in Copenhagen, at a meeting with Alex Noerdin, the Governor of South Sumatra. Noerdin is overseeing the 2018 Asian Games, and has committed to use only zero carbon vehicles at the event, saying:
“I am very interested in these rapidly emerging technologies and the potential they offer to improve the lives of Indonesian people through reducing air pollution and advancing our economy. I believe that the Asian Games 2018 in the cities of Palembang and Jakarta are an excellent opportunity to demonstrate and to launch available green technologies for our greener future.”
With the games only 2 years away, the Indonesians will need current generation technology to meet that target, and it seems they have chosen fuel-cell vehicles, giving the new joint-venture its first market.
The Danish government has also welcomed the venture, indicating that Arcola and IMS will be investing the Danish hydrogen fuel cell cluster. So it seems that Copenhagen and Sumatra will be the respective European and South Asian focus of the joint venture for the moment.
IMS ECUBES & Arcola will present more information and launch their latest fuel cell-based product at the “European Utility week” conference in Barcelona (15-18, November, 2016) under the track ‘ENERGY REVOLUTION EUROPE, Technology is just an enabler’.