Hydrogen could be driving force of a carbon-free future

THE winner of our Green Champion award is helping make carbon-free power a reality in the UK and Europe.

Dr Graham Cooley, chief executive of hydrogen technology firm ITM Power, has a track record of growing university spin-outs and developing clean energy technology. Now he’s taking a concept, which turns unreliable renewable wind and solar power into hydrogen gas, and bringing it to the mass market. ITM Power’s electrolyser technology creates on-demand clean fuel for cars, cooking, heating and even welding.

Dr Cooley’s company has won approval to sell its products in Europe and its technology is being tested by companies including UPS, DHL and Stansted Airport. ITM Power is an AIM-listed company registered with a staff of 55, and its team of engineers and scientists are based across two facilities in Sheffield.

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Dr Cooley told the audience at the Environment Awards ceremony: “What we are interested in doing is taking renewable power and making hydrogen and deploying it as a transport fuel. What you do then is you store renewable power and make a zero carbon footprint transport fuel. So it’s a really good way of de-carbonising both the power network and also transport.”

Dr Cooley said energy is the largest market on the planet, the largest sub-section of which is fuel, which is very difficult to de-carbonise.

“The thing about hydrogen is that you can make your own hydrogen on-site at home using your own renewable power. So it gives you energy security and fuel security,” said Dr Cooley.

He added: “I think we have to stop thinking about renewable technology in terms of being consumers of other people’s equipment, and think about being a supplier to the rest of the world. It’s about making things and that’s what we do.”

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ITM Power is a founding member of UKH2Mobility, a project to ensure the UK is well positioned for the commercial roll-out of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. It brings together three Government Departments and industrial participants from the utility, gas, infrastructure and global car manufacturing sectors.

Recent achievements by the firm also include the signing of a lease agreement with aeroplane manufacturer Boeing for the development, assembly and field trials for an off-grid, solar-based hydrogen refuelling station for its unmanned aircraft systems, as well as the delivery, with Marks & Spencer, of the UK’s first hydrogen fuel cell materials handling trial using on-site hydrogen generation.

Dr Cooley joined ITM Power as chief executive in 2009. Before that he was a business development manager for National Power and spent 11 years in the power industry developing energy storage and generation technologies. Dr Cooley was formerly chief executive of Sensortec, founding chief executive of Metalysis, a spin-out of Cambridge University and founding chief executive of Antenova.

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