Participation opportunities
The aim is to establish a value creation community for hydrogen system production and a strategic partnership between Fraunhofer and the industry, as well as between the participating companies.
Interested parties can choose between different levels of involvement. Depending on their previous experience in the hydrogen environment, production of hydrogen systems or their intended business objective, partnerships are offered at Starter, Expert and Champion levels. Every level builds on each other and includes the services of the previous tier. This means that the partnership can be started at any level and gradually developed.
Starter
The key aspects of this partnership level are the establishment of technological and economic knowledge for hydrogen system production, as well as the exchange with key stakeholders in the value chain. In addition, contacts with experts in thematic working groups are offered.
The services offered at the Starter level include the following:
- Annually updated presentation of market and technology compass
- 1x two-day workshop at the Fraunhofer IWU Chemnitz: to develop the company's position
- Referenzfabrik.H2 company meeting: Free participation with two participants in the annual plenary session of the value creation community with partners and experts in hydrogen system production
- Integration of the company profile in the Technology Mall
- Active integration in working groups and expert exchange
Expert
This partnership level is aimed at companies that already have experience in hydrogen system production or specific issues or manufacturing challenges. Within the Referenzfabrik.H2, specific competencies and infrastructures are available that can be used to develop solutions. The value creation community provides support from conception to implementation.
In addition to the services of the starter level, the expert can have a bilaterally defined scope of research for the creation of customized solutions. These include, for example:
- Conception and engineering
- Design of flow fields, cells, stack and system
- Derivation of tools, machines and systems
- Process developments and comparisons
- Prototype production
- Testing tasks for individual parameters through to the entire system
- Calculation of product manufacture
- Access to the Hy-Ventus and Hy-Victus reference solutions
Champion
This partnership level is intended for partners who have already mastered defined process steps or services of the hydrogen system production value creation community and intend to scale the prototype solutions into industrial series production. Champions have access to the Referenzfabrik.H2 infrastructure for prototype production and quality control systems in order to build up customized interface expertise, for example for integration into supply chains. The "Referenzfabrik.H2 Champion" label also enables materials, tools, machinery and systems to be integrated into the existing Referenzfabrik.H2 infrastructure and networked with the latest developments and solutions from the participating Fraunhofer Institutes. These technologies can then be made available to a broad market (inside and outside Referenzfabrik.H2).
- Provision of tools, machinery and equipment and integration into the physical value chain
- Generation of digital twins for integration into the virtual technology mall with specific parameters and the representation of the essential functionalities for fitting into the virtual process chain
- Acquisition of interface competence: technology development and optimization and process chain considerations and adaptation
- Pilot series production
- Access to testing facilities and quality control
- In-house training on specific topics
All partners also meet at least once a year for the reference factory H2 - "company assembly". Here, current developments, new solutions, and project participations are presented, and live presentations from production and expert discussions are facilitated. Another focus of this forum is various working groups, in which partners can participate depending on their areas of interest.
If you are interested in joining the value creation community, please get in touch with us.