Hydrogen: Inauguration of the new WAVE-H2 research platform

Green steel, aviation fuel, or energy storage: Hydrogen plays a central role in reducing CO_₂ in sectors that are difficult to power using electricity. This requires research along the entire hydrogen value chain: The WAVE-H2 platform at the University of Stuttgart investigates holistically how hydrogen can be produced, processed, transported, and used in a decentralized manner.

"With the WAVE-H2 platform, the University of Stuttgart gains a high-caliber infrastructure that can make an important contribution to forward-looking hydrogen research within Stuttgart’s and the region’s innovation ecosystem," says Anna Steiger, Chancellor at the University of Stuttgart. "We are proud of this flagship project for the development of sustainable hydrogen technologies."

WAVE-H2, with its two sites in Stuttgart-Vaihingen and Freudenstadt, aims to advance research on new hydrogen technologies and their system integration, closely aligned with industrial practice. Vaihingen serves as the experimental core site of the platform. At the Freudenstadt site, which is expected to become operational in summer 2026, the solutions being researched can be tested at an industrial scale.

"Through our platform, we are making a significant contribution to innovative and flexible hydrogen solutions and the decarbonization of industry at regional, state, and national levels," says Prof. Alexander Sauer, Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) and project leader of WAVE-H2. Prof. Kai Peter Birke, Chair of Electrical Energy Storage Systems at the Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv), highlights the Stuttgart approach: "We are excited to collaborate across disciplines with our university partners in the development of new hydrogen technologies.”

The researchers at the WAVE-H2 Campus in Vaihingen conduct research across the entire hydrogen value chain and on power-to-X technologies. Among other things, they investigate how hydrogen can be produced via electrolysis and further processed into gases such as methanol or ammonia. In this context, the researchers focus primarily on the production of ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen, as well as the recovery of hydrogen from ammonia. Ammonia is considered a promising medium for transporting the energy contained in hydrogen. In addition, a fuel cell test rig enables research on converting the chemical energy of hydrogen into electrical energy and heat.

Other research projects at the WAVE-H2 Campus in Vaihingen investigate, among other things, the production of aviation fuel from biogas and the production of basic chemicals – currently still dependent on fossil resources such as petroleum – through the pyrolysis of waste.

The WAVE-H2 platform, funded with approximately 36 million euros by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), is being established and operated long-term at the two sites in Stuttgart-Vaihingen and Freudenstadt by the Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) and the Chair of Electrical Energy Storage Systems at the Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv) of the University of Stuttgart. WAVE-H2 collaborates, among others, with the Stuttgart research initiative CHEMampere, which develops technologies for the sustainable and CO_₂-neutral production of chemicals. The innovation modules at the WAVE-H2 Campus in Vaihingen are located alongside the neighboring ARENA2036.