Northern Connections

Post Living Lab in Alkmaar - the Scottish partners experience

25 September 2019 - Published by Anne Katrine Arentsen
Falkirk Council and Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Partners on the Interreg Northern Connections programme, attended the Alkmaar Living Lab event on the 12-13 September 2019.

The Hydrogen theme was of particular interest to the partners as they are working, alongside industry partners, on a plan to decarbonize an industrial hub in Grangemouth, and hydrogen could play an essential part on implementing low carbon related activities such as development of low carbon heavy duty transport centre, energy generation for industrial processes and CCU activities.

Scotland as a country has already a successful range of Hydrogen related activities and one of the most proactive hydrogen and cell industry associations in Europe, Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (SHFCA), but the attendance to the event highlighted some of the key developments in hydrogen electrolysers that for us will be very useful to take back to our industry base and consider as part of the decarbonisation plan for the Grangemouth industrial cluster and beyond to other national projects.

Scotland is also looking to deliver a number of low carbon transport hubs across the country and hydrogen will play a key part on delivering those so the discussions in relation to utilising liquefied hydrogen for fuelling vehicles was very interesting. The Scottish partners have already started to share presentations and learnings of the event with project owners and industry groups across the country, which they hope will lead to potential follow on interactions between Scottish companies and projects represented at the event.

The keynote presentations were also extremely interesting and highlighted the importance of long term planning to realistically implement change and move forward to a carbon neutral society. The need to focus on developing low carbon solutions from molecules rather than electrification and information provided about the various options for using these was also very valuable.    

Nick Stapley, Business Development Manager at H2Tec, Logan Energy, attended the Living Labs said the following:“The event was an ideal opportunity for us at H2Tec to grow our network of partners, customers and suppliers throughout northwest Europe. The challenge of decarbonisation is one that requires cross-border collaboration, and it is through events like the Alkmaar Living Lab, that relationships can be fostered in order to meet these challenges.”