Last April 21^st, 2023, the final event of HyCARE Project took place in Paris with an exhibition entitled “The HyCARE system. Opportunities and challenges of the energy storage sector”. The show hosted by ENGIE Lab Crigen in cooperation with CNRS aimed to show the main results of activities carried out during the HyCARE Project, supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, and coordinated by the University of Turin.

The day started with the presentation of the project activities, outlining the process for testing and tailoring the hydrogen carrier as well as those related to the production and processing. Heat management was also a fundamental topic, together with the description of the design and building of the tank, the system integration, its commissioning, and validation. Finally, the techno-economic analysis was explained together with a short overview of exploitation and dissemination activities implemented.

Following the Partners’ presentations, HyCARE hosted other three EU projects COSMHYC, SHERLOHCK and HyPSTER on hydrogen storage topic that presented their activities and shared their own experience.

Finally a Stakeholder Roundtable was moderated by HyCARE Coordinator, Marcello Baricco, with Patricia De Rango – Member of Task 40 of Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Programme (Hydrogen TCP) within the International Energy Agency, Olivier Joubert – Director of the French Federation of Hydrogen Energy FRH2, Abdelilah Slaoui – Director of the CNRS Task Force on Energy and co-director of the PEPRH2, Pierre Roy, Director of European Strategic Collaborative Program, Enterprise relationships Directorate at CNRS. The discussion focused on the big challenges of hydrogen storage in the future.

The event wrapped up with the visit to the demonstrator guided by Jose M. Bellosta von Colbe – expert on metal hydrides from Hereon, who explained the functioning and components in the container, followed by the visit to the laboratories of ENGIE Lab CRIGEN guided by Reda Bellahcene and Olivier Lefranc, from ENGIE.

“It has been a great challenge” – says prof. Marcello Baricco, of the University of Turin and project coordinator – “but we are now happy to demonstrate the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. The theoretical studies on metal hydrides, performed in last years in European laboratories, find now a real application at a large scale. The combination of Metal Hydrides with Phase Change Materials for the thermal management of a hydrogen storage system was claimed since a while, but now it is a realty. We really thank the Clean Hydrogen Partnership for the financial support to the project. All partners have worked together with professionalism and enthusiasm, allowing to reach the final goal of the HyCARE project.”

Download the complete press release.

Credits: Franck DUNOUAU