The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) recently announced a collaboration on hydrogen and fuel cell safety research and development (R&D) data-sharing to accelerate progress in hydrogen technologies. The partners’ mutual goals are energy security, resilience and economic growth.

In relation to the collaboration, the DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office has announced that SimpleFuel, winner of the $1 million H2 Refuel H-Prize, is exporting a hydrogen refueling appliance to Japan. The H2 Refuel H-Prize competition challenged America’s innovators to deploy an on-site hydrogen generation system to fuel hydrogen vehicles. SimpleFuel’s home-scale refueling appliance can provide a 1-kg fill to vehicles in 15 minutes or less at 700 bar using hydrogen produced via electrolysis, along with a cost-effective design that minimizes setback distances and reduces the physical footprint of the system, says the DOE.

SimpleFuel is a collaboration of three companies: IVYS Energy Solutions (Massachusetts), McPhy Energy N.A. (Massachusetts) and PDC Machines (Pennsylvania). Their approach complements the conventional retail fueling stations currently being funded by states and the private sector, the DOE notes.

With support from the Japanese Environmental Ministry of the Central Government, the SimpleFuel appliance will run on solar or grid electricity for use with a Toyota fuel-cell forklift truck at the Kesen Precut Cooperative. Kesen Precut manufactures wood and wood chip products for the Japanese market with two production facilities in Sumida Town and Rikuzentakata, Japan.