The Swedish government has decided to invest almost $9 million USD into Powercell Sweden AB in which Volvo has a 40-percent stake. The investment will create 100 new jobs over the next 3 years.
According to Per Wassén, Chairman of Powercell, “We are busy staffing the company and have received more than 1,000 highly qualified applicants for our advertised jobs. All resources, from management, marketing and sales to development, production, purchasing and the laboratory will be collected under one roof, close to the abutment of the Älvsborg Bridge on Hisingen in Göteborg. This will make Powercell the largest fuel cell plant in northern Europe.”
For the past 15 years Volvo has been developing a reformer and fuel cell for PowerCell Sweden for the transportation industry. The reformer will use gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, DME (Dimethyl ether), biogas and methanol as feedstock for hydrogen production.
The hydrogen will then be fed to the fuel cell to provide propulsion for the vehicles. Volvo is part of the Hydrogen Sweden project aimed at both developing hydrogen fueling stations for Sweden and eventually connecting to Norway via the Hynor project.