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Bosch is throwing its weight behind the push to establish a hydrogen economy: “On the path to a climate-neutral future, we have to make it possible for energy-intensive industries to shift to renewables. Hydrogen will be a key element in security of supply,” says Rolf Najork, the Bosch management board member responsible for industrial technology and the company’s manufacturing technology chief. Bosch can offer the technology needed for hydrogen use in various sectors. The company is developing fuel cells for mobile and stationary applications, equipping hydrogen filling stations with compressors, and producing hydrogen in its own plants. In addition, Bosch plans to enter the electrolyzer components business. “We are getting hydrogen-based technologies out of the laboratory and into industrial practice – onto the roads and into factories,” Najork says.

At the Bosch plant in Homburg, one component of the SOFC system, the so-called hotbox, is produced. In addition, a fuel cell system is now used in a sector-coupled hydrogen cycle to produce electricity and heat.

Global demand for electricity continues to grow unabated. At the same time, humanity is facing a mammoth challenge in the shape of climate change. What is urgently required, therefore, are technologies for tomorrow that are compatible with today’s industrial landscape. In a pilot project, Deutsche Telekom is now trialing two stationary solid oxide fuel-cell (SOFC) systems from Bosch. These can be used to generate — efficiently, sustainably and in a decentralized way — the electricity required to power, for example, the operating centers for network systems.

Four days, 341 exhibitors, and 39,000 players from the sanitation, heating, and air conditioning industry: At IFH/Intherm Nuremberg, the trade fair for sanitation, heating, air conditioning, and renewable energies, Bosch presented its decentralized solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system.

The energy supply of the future lies in renewable energies and in hydrogen, which can be used to generate emissions-free, sustainable electricity and heat. At its booth, Bosch showed how the SOFC system is paving the way for the transformation of the energy sector. In the future, the SOFC system will be able to use hydrogen as fuel, but it’s already able to run on natural gas and biomethane today. As part of a decentralized energy grid, the SOFC system can be connected to other power generating systems in order to supply electricity and heat for various industrial and commercial applications.

Dr. Stefan Hartung, Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch GmbH, welcomed Dr. Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, to the Bosch plant in Bamberg on Wednesday. With 6,500 associates, this is one of the most prominent employers in the region.

Hartung gave the Minister a tour of the plant, which can trace its history back to 1939 and is one of the largest manufacturing sites for drive technology in the Bosch Group. For the Bamberg site, the industrialization of high-temperature fuel cells (solid oxide fuel cells = SOFC) represents an important prospect for the future. While he was on site, Habeck found out more about the progress of SOFC industrialization. As he explained: “If we are to achieve net zero, then business, politics, innovations and the promotion of these must all go hand in hand. With its investments here in Bamberg, Bosch is playing its part in ensuring this transformation of industry is successful and is future-proofing its future for the region.”

Click here for the press release about the visit from the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action

Working with Stadtwerke Bamberg, the city’s public utilities, on a high-temperature fuel cell in Bamberg’s city center, Bosch is for the first time demonstrating its vision of a decentralized, climate-friendly energy supply of the future. The two partners have taken a micro power plant based on solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC) into operation at Bamberg’s central bus station (ZOB). Measuring roughly two meters high, the refrigerator-sized plant generates around 10 kilowatts of electricity, which is enough to meet the annual requirements of more than 20 four-person households in the neighborhood of the bus station. With an overall efficiency of 60 percent for power generation and more than 85 percent with additional use of heat, this high-temperature fuel cell is clearly superior to other energy converters of its size. The heat it produces is used by a bakery at the bus station for its heating and hot water systems. “As we move to alternative forms of energy, decentralized power supplies are becoming very important. The high-temperature fuel cell is ideally suited for the expansion of local power and heating networks in urban neighborhoods,” says Dr. Wilfried Kölscheid, who is responsible for stationary fuel cells at Bosch. “We are pleased to have found a partner in Stadtwerke Bamberg with whom we can jointly demonstrate what our high-temperature fuel cell is capable of.”

Read the press release about the SOFC pilot project at ZOB Bamberg