A competition for up to £7.2 million of funding for firms to develop hydrogen and fuel cell technology was launched on September 10.
Hydrogen and fuel cells have the potential to cut carbon emissions because they only emit water and heat as by products. The competition, funded by DECC (the Department of Energy and Climate Change), is part of government efforts to stimulate low carbon technologies announced in this year's budget.

The initiative could support projects that enable the demonstration of residential micro CHP and distributed power generation products based on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies. It could also enable the development of scalable processes and equipment for the mass manufacture and testing of fuel cells and fuel cells modules.

Companies will be able to bid to the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), who will manage the programme, for a share of the cash to develop and test the technology. TSB was set up by the government.

'The UK has the right combination of expertise, ingenuity and determination to bring hydrogen and fuel cell technology to the global market. We're providing real help now to help advance this technology in the UK, keeping us at the forefront of advanced green manufacturing', said Energy and climate change minister, David Kidney.

The competition is open to pre-existing and new consortia. The deadlines for receipt of applications is October 1 and October 29 respectively.

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