Fuel Cell Industry Review 2019 - The Year of the Gigawatt

E4tech’s 6th annual review of the global fuel cell industry is now available here. Using primary data straight from the main players, and free to download, it quantifies shipments by fuel cell type, by application and by region of deployment, and summarises industry developments over the year.

2019 saw shipments globally grow significantly to 1.1 GW. Numbers grew slightly, to around 70,000 units. The growth in capacity came mainly from cars, Hyundai with its NEXO and Toyota with its Mirai, together accounting for around two-thirds of shipments by capacity. Unit numbers are still dominated by Japan’s ene-Farm cogeneration appliances, at around 45,000 shipments. Large numbers of trucks and buses are now manufactured and shipped in China, though numbers deployed are limited by the availability of refuelling infrastructure. But growth in China is uncertain, as policy changes are under discussion.

2020 looks like it will be an even bigger year, again dominated by Hyundai and Toyota. The Japanese fuel cell market is expected also to grow, partly on the back of the Tokyo ‘Hydrogen Olympics’. Korea is another growth story, buoyed by its latest roadmap, which aims to shift large swathes of its economy to hydrogen energy by 2040. Elsewhere, much of the supply chain development is in heavy duty vehicles, and big supply chain players like Cummins, Weichai and Michelin are making significant investments.