hy.tec mittendrin 2026

On 25 and 26 June 2026, hy.tec mittendrin took place at Fraunhofer IWU in Chemnitz. Under the banner “Experience manufacturing and testing technologies for hydrogen system production live”, the event took specialists from the supplier, machinery and plant engineering sectors straight to the equipment of Referenzfabrik.H₂ — to where the processes actually run rather than merely appear on slides.

Keynote talks in the lecture hall provided the wider context. Professor Welf-Guntram Drossel, Executive Director of Fraunhofer IWU, opened with “Producing sustainably with hydrogen”. Thomas Stiede of the BMW Group Leipzig plant offered a car manufacturer’s perspective on using hydrogen in production. On the second day, Nilgün Parker, head of division at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN), set out the industrial-policy dimension under the title “The industrial-policy significance of hydrogen microgrids and their applications”.

The heart of the event, however, was on the shop floor. At numbered stations, partners and researchers demonstrated the individual steps of the process chain: forming and joining the bipolar plate, wire mesh as a porous transport layer, assembly of the membrane electrode assembly, inline quality inspection and automated handling in the robot cell. Between stations there was room for what makes such formats valuable: direct technical conversation about feasibility, cycle times and cost.

The exhibitors were CELLIMPACT, EDI, HAFF-Dichtungen, HAVER & BOECKER, held, HORIBA FuelCon, Intego, MOVE, Profiroll, PROMESS, Röchling, RUCKS, SITEC, Steigerwald Strahltechnik, TÜV and weldmetrix.

The short path from the talk to the running machine is what defines hy.tec: anyone wanting to know whether their own capabilities fit hydrogen production sees the processes, the part and the people behind them in one place.