Since the early days of this new millennium, Icelandic New Energy (INE) has focused its attention on the testing of hydrogen as fuel. Iceland’s abundance of renewable energy resources is chief among the factors that make it a perfect location for this significant fuel transformation: to develop hydrogen into fuel that can sharply reduce Iceland’s remaining reliance on fossil fuels.

From March 2001 to autumn of 2005, Icelandic New Energy has managed the Ecological City Transport System project, or ECTOS. This has been the first real-scale demonstration project in Iceland to use hydrogen as a fuel.

During the ECTOS project, the first hydrogen production, storage and filling station has opened in Iceland and hydrogen-fueled buses have driven tens of thousands of kilometres in Reykjavik, saving great amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. Public response has indicated a widespread enthusiasm for the project and acceptance of
hydrogen as a fuel.

Plans for the future include the application of hydrogen as a fuel for passenger cars, as well as for Iceland’s fishing fleet. Iceland is becoming a centre for research and international discourse on the use of hydrogen fuel, a living laboratory for an experiment that could have global implications. INE’s goal of Iceland’s conversion from fossil fuels to hydrogen by 2050 is ambitious, but feasible.