First flight

Two weeks ago, at a specially convened DTI conference in London, energy minister Malcolm Wicks made a point of underlining the government's commitment to the future of fuel cells as well as the possible rewards for the UK's burgeoning fuel cell industry.

The conference — designed to highlight the government's £15m fuel cell demonstration programme — coincided with the launch of the new Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Knowledge Transfer Network. This newest member of the KTN family aims to bring together all the stakeholders in the UK's fuel cell industry and is to be managed by the UK's Centre of Excellence for low-carbon and fuel cell technologies, Cenex.

Cenex was formally established last April but the concept of a Centre of Excellence for low-carbon and fuel cell technologies arose from the recommendations by the Automotive Innovation and Growth Team (AIGT) in a report of November 2002. The AIGT brought together leading figures from the UK automotive sector to identify the issues likely to have the greatest impact on the long-term profitability and productivity of the sector. It was decided that the UK automotive sector had to respond competitively to the challenges posed by the transition to low-carbon and fuel cell technologies already underway.