Global Energy Transformation Target
01. About fuel cells
02. Executive summary
03. Business opportunity
04. The Management
05. The market
06. Strategy
07. Contact

About fuel cells

A fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy in a fuel to electrical energy. Since the efficiency of a fuel cell is higher than that of a petrol or diesel engine the emission of CO2 is less. And since no combustion takes place, NOx are not emitted. If a sustainable fuel is used CO2 contribution is close to zero.

  • The possibility to use Hydrogen in a fuel cell was invented 1879 by Nernst

  • Since 1990 fuel cell R&D have developed extremely fast

  • Between 1995-2005 a lot of too optimistic predictions for fuel cells were made

  • In 2007 the first market break through was found in two early applications, telecom backup and battery loaders for pleasure vehicles


The core of the fuel cell consists of a membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which is placed between two flow-field plates. The MEA consists of two electrodes, the anode and the cathode and an electrolyte.

The hydrogen is separated into protons (hydrogen ions) and electrons. The free electrons are conducted in the form of a usable electric current through the external circuit. Oxygen from the air together with electrons from the external circuit and protons combine to form water and heat.

There are different types of fuel cells. In this context we will just discuss:

  • PEM fuel cell. These are the fuel cells that fully dominate the market today. They typically work at 80 °C

  • Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, SOFC. These starts to be available in the market and works typically at 800 - 1.000 °C


It´s all about temperature. That is the way to come down to acceptable prices for fuel cells. So the PEM technology tries to raise its temperature (from 60 °C) to get rid of its dependency on very pure hydrogen and its high costs for raw materials like platinum. SOFCs want to lower their temperature (from 1000 °C to 500 °C) to avoid high costs and exhaustion of materials. GETTs SOFC has from the start aimed at middle temperatures or Low temp SOFC. The new class of cells is usually mentioned as Intermediate fuel cells.