Manufacturing Research and Development
The Fuel Cell Technologies Program's manufacturing research and development (R&D) activity improves processes and reduces the cost of manufacturing components and systems for hydrogen production, delivery, and storage, and for stationary, portable, and transportation fuel cell applications.
There are significant challenges to increasing production of today's hydrogen and fuel cell components and systems, whether they are built using laboratory-scale fabrication technologies or are high-volume commercially available products. The Fuel Cell Technologies Program is working to streamline production and reduce costs for cross-cutting technologies and capabilities such as:
- Metrology and standards
- Modeling and simulation tools
- Design
- Quality control requirements necessary to improve manufacturing processes.
On August 11−12, 2011, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory held a Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Manufacturing R&D Workshop with various manufacturing stakeholders from the federal government, universities, national laboratories, and industry.
Additional information about current manufacturing R&D activities is presented in the Manufacturing R&D section of the program's Multi-Year Research, Development, and Demonstration Plan.