Importance of integrated strategies and innovations for commercial breakthrough of fuel cells

Fuel cell based energy systems are a potential large-scale future energy option. The key challenge for fuel cells is to reach a market breakthrough which in turn requires a major cost reduction from the present level. Using a combined learning and diffusion model we have investigated effective integrated strategies that combine optimally R&D and market measures to decrease the expenditure and time needed to reach the breakeven point. The results indicate that major efforts in R&D for enhancing fuel cell innovations such as the European fuel cell and hydrogen joint technology effort would be economically well justified. Such efforts could save several billion dollars in the market deployment efforts otherwise required. Through a balanced and integrated technology push and market pull effort the time to breakthrough could similarly be reduced by 60–70%.