Overview
The aim of INN-BALANCE is to develop a novel and integrated development platform for developing advanced Balance of Plant (BoP) components in current fuel cell based vehicles, in order to improve their efficiency and reliability, reducing costs and presenting a stable supply chain to the European car manufacturers and system integrators.
Accordingly, INN-BALANCE technical objectives are:
- to develop highly efficient and reliable fuel cell BoP components;
- to reduce costs of current market products in fuel cell systems;
- to achieve high technology readiness levels (TRL7 or higher) in all the tackled developments;
- to improve and tailor development tools for design, modelling and testing innovative components in fuel cell based vehicles.
To this end, a European Consortium composed by major automotive companies, consulting groups, research institutes and universities was established. INN-BALANCE will be focused on four main general topics; first of all on new components developments, addressing the latest changes and trends in fuel cells vehicles technology, from new air turbo-compressor, anode recirculation/injection module and advanced control/diagnosis devices to new concepts of thermal management and anti-freeze units based on standard automotive components; secondly, on the vehicle integration and validation of the components in a TRL7 platform placed at a well-known car manufacturing platform; thirdly, providing innovative and cost optimized manufacturing processes especially developed for automotive BoP components; finally, on the results dissemination and exploitation, new technology broadcasting and public awareness of new, low-cost and reliable clean energy solutions in Europe bringing at the same time highly qualified new job opportunities.