Snam has announced the launch of the Hydrogen Innovation Center, first national Italian pole for hydrogen technologies. The initiative aims to bring together industrial partners and university research centers to accelerate the development of the sector and contribute to the achievement of national and European climate objectives.
The first office will be inaugurated in Modena, as part of a collaboration agreement signed between Snam and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The Emilian hub will later be joined by other hubs, including one with the Milan Polytechnic. Also, by the end of 2021, it is planned to create a hub in the US, in collaboration with a prestigious university in the United States.
“The mission of the Hydrogen Innovation Center – he declared Cosma Panzacchi, Evp Hydrogen of Snam – is to build a strategic alliance between companies and the world of research to consolidate the Italian hydrogen supply chain and encourage the birth of new companies and projects, also through the launch of an acceleration programme. The goal is to propose the first projects to the market and extend the partnership network also abroad within the next two years”.
“Snam's Hydrogen Innovation Center will continue the collaborations already in place with research centers in the hydrogen field, including the one started with Enea in relation to the Hydrogen Valley of Casaccia (Rome). The research and experimentation activities will include the entire hydrogen supply chain, from production technologies to transport and storage infrastructures to end uses, such as industrial applications (steel) and transportation (fuel cell cars and trucks, ships and trains)," the company underlines in a statement.
In the Modena hub, where 4 researchers from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia will work (in the initial phase) with the support of Snam personnel, there will be three areas to be studied: the automation of the production chains of electrolysers and fuel cells, a prototype of a hydrogen refueling station built in the University with Italian technology and new applications to support self-driving vehicles as well as IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (intelligence artificial) for the mobility of the future.
