Development of a Sustainability Strategy for Fuel Cells Using Life Cycle Analysis and Expert Interviews

Abstract Fuel Cells (FC) are one of the most promising technologies for achieving the European climate targets, especially for future mobility. As part of the German government's national hydrogen strategy, measures for the further development and implementation of FC technology as a drive technology in automobiles as well as the production and use of hydrogen were adopted in June 2020. For Germany to be a pioneer in the field of FC technology, the investments must be used sustainably. The objective of this paper is to introduce a sustainability strategy for FCs along the life cycle via production, energy sources, infrastructure, use as well as end-of-life. To present an overview of this existing value chain, life cycle analyses are compared and hypotheses for increasing sustainability are formulated. These serve as the basis for the development of interview forms for discussions with FC experts from research, industry, and politics. Based on the current state of the art and its optimization potential as well as the insider knowledge of the experts, a sustainability strategy for FC-powered automobiles is presented.