On the afternoon of March 1st, the European Commission was organising a high-level conference about hydrogen valleys at the Autoworld Museum, the famous car museum in Brussels’ Parc du Cinquantenaire (“Park of the Fiftieth Anniversary”) .

It all started with the Black Eyed Peas’ hit “Let’s get it started.” The session was opened by Bart Biebuyck, Executive Director of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership and Rosalinde van der Vlies, Director of Clean Planet, followed by Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Research and Innovation.

She insisted on the need to move faster on hydrogen, due to the geopolitical context. On the subject of hydrogen valleys, she said that this was the right conveyor for deploying and promoting cooperation between the public and private sectors.

Among the (large) audience, there was the Brussels brass but also many representatives of companies, including those related to mobility.

At the entrance to Autoworld, you could see vehicles (Toyota Mirai, Mercedes GLC F Cell, Opel Vivaro e hydrogen, an H2 refuse lorry from e-Trucks and, of course, the MissonH24 (under a tarpaulin) with its partners (Symbio, Plastic Omnium, TotalEnergies). And in front of the hall, you could see a combustion engine from Punch Hydrocells, fuel cells from Toyota, the hydrogen motorbike from Texys Group (H2 Motronics) and the hydrogen bike from Pragma.

France stays in the race.

Article written by Laurent Meillaud and translated by Logan King