The BeBoP project, short for “Beyond state-of-the-art Efficiency by improving Balance of Plant components,” focuses on improving fuel cell systems for heavy commercial vehicles and other mobility sectors, including aviation, shipping, and rail. The project aims to develop more efficient, compact, and reliable components that also monitor fuel cell conditions, enhancing system performance and lifespan.
Led by SINTEF AS, the project includes partners such as the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Garrett Motion, Freudenberg Filtration Technologies, Silver Atena, and FPT Industrial. Supported by the EU and Clean Hydrogen Partnership, BeBoP has a budget of nearly 4 million euros and will run for three-and-a-half years.
Key components of focus include the air compressor, humidifier, and DC/DC converter. The air compressor ensures adequate oxygen supply, the humidifier maintains optimal humidity, and the DC/DC converter regulates output voltage. The project will develop more efficient versions of these components, including a lighter DC/DC converter with a power distribution unit (PDU) and cell monitoring, and a humidifier with improved water management.
Component specialists will test these solutions in fuel cell systems from FPT or a short stack from DLR. Additionally, SINTEF and DLR’s modeling expertise will optimize fuel cell system operations, aiming to reduce hydrogen consumption and power use. The project seeks to help scale up fuel cell technology for large-scale deployment and explore standardization for industrialization.
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