WFCC 2020 Plenary Speakers

Tobias Christoph Brunner.jpg

Tobias Christoph Brunner

Managing Director Hynergy GmbH Germany

Vice President Hydrogen Business Great Wall Motor China

brunner@hynergy.de

+49-175-1466923

Presentation Title

Hydrogen on the Way to Competitiveness – A Hydrogen Council Cost Perspective

Abstract

The Hydrogen Council, the world’s largest CEO-backed organization to promote the establishment of a hydrogen economy during its CEO event on 20.01.2020 in Paris has published an industry-led study on the cost development of hydrogen technologies in multiple sectors including mobility, energy, industry and heating. The study revealed that the competitiveness of hydrogen technologies is closer than many expected and that investment to overcome the gap is moderate compared with investments in today’s energy and fuel systems. Until 2030 nine mobility applications reach competitive cost to conventional and alternative low-emission technologies. The cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis will drop significantly with scaling-up to electrolyzer capacity as do fuel cell systems for mobility applications once a volume production is reached. Fuel cell vehicles may become competitive to battery electric vehicles in several long-range applications, with both technologies complementing each other over the portfolio of mobility applications. As a key conclusion the study also revealed that hydrogen can get a key role in the transition of energy and mobility towards a zero-emission world: hydrogen will be a powerful and indispensable carrier for renewable energy and may be the foundation for an international renewable energy and fuel trading system starting as early as 2030.

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Brunner is a Managing Director and Co-owner of Hynergy GmbH, a Hydrogen Energy and Mobility Engineering company in Germany. Since 2016 he also serves Great Wall Motors as their VP Fuel Cell R&D. In 2019 Dr. Brunner was appointed Strategic Council of FTXT Future Energy, the new Hydrogen Fuel Cell Company of the Great Wall Group. Before co-founding Hynergy GmbH in 2015, Dr. Brunner has been serving BMW Group in various roles for more than 10 years, most recently as head of BMW’s Technology Project Hydrogen Fuel Cell. Under Dr. Brunner’s supervision several fuel cell electric vehicle prototypes and test fleets as well as novel cryogenic storage and refueling technologies have been developed and demonstrated. Dr. Brunner has been a panel reviewer for the European Commission, the US Department of Energy as well as the Research Council of Norway. He is the author of several reference publications on hydrogen technology and holds a dozen patents on cryogenic hydrogen storage and refueling technology.