Among the interviews with experts and leaders of Czech business, you will find a new one with our CEO Luboš Hajský. You will learn how hydrogen know-how is being built in the Czech Republic and why we rely on our own development instead of buying ready-made components. We also talked about the time of mass expansion of hydrogen technology in practice.
The link to the article and the interview in audio version can be found here.
Charging electric cars, supplying the stage at a music festival or running an entire building. All using only hydrogen. Does that seem like too distant a future to you? According to Lubos Hajský, founder of Devinn, it's more like a very near future.
The company, which is betting on hydrogen and considers it a necessary part of the Czech energy mix, believes that the technology will spread widely.
Devinn has launched an electric car charger that uses hydrogen and a generator that converts the hydrogen into electrical and thermal energy. To cover fluctuations in demand, the system is equipped with its own high-voltage battery. Hydrogen is stored in pressurised tanks and oxygen is obtained from the surrounding air.
"We have it in the development phase, but we are taking it to festivals where we are trying to show this technology to the mainstream(meaning the general public, ed.)," Luboš Hajský says on the Agenda show and podcast, adding that he is also trying to correct the unjustly bad reputation of hydrogen. At the Rock for People festival, the generator showed that it can power a stage, and it also helped houses hit by a tornado in Moravia.
The system is versatile and can be used as a DC (direct current) fast charging station for electric vehicles, a heat source or a power source. However, unlike diesel generators, it is also suitable for indoor use.
But for now, one of the big problems is the price, which is holding back demand for the hydrogen generator. "Companies are interested, but the price is roughly tenfold," Hajský said, adding that the price will come down with greater expansion. "You need to have as many applications as possible and that will make it cheaper," he says, adding that hydrogen has very similar properties to gasoline and diesel.
"Given how the technology works and what the design is made up of, I think it has a great chance of being cheaper than an internal combustion engine. But of course - the lines and all the stuff have yet to be built. For now, it's mostly handmade for dozens of units," says Hajský.
According to him, the biggest advantage of hydrogen is the fact that it can be produced anywhere and, unlike electric cars, it does not burden the transmission system.
Now Devinn is also planning its first hydrogen building. "Next year we want to make a building in Jablonec nad Nisou, where we are based, that will be energy independent," Hajský says, adding that the hydrogen tank will be stored on the roof.
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