Hydrogen fuel cell test facility opens its doors in the West Midlands

A state-of-the-art 240m² hydrogen fuel cell and electrolysis test facility, aimed at expanding the UK’s delivery of new fuel cell and hydrogen technology to international markets, has opened in Warwickshire.

The site was officially opened by Mr Atsushi Horiba Chairman and Group CEO, HORIBA Ltd alongside Mark Garrett, Chief Operating Officer at Ceres and Baroness Martha Lane-Fox, president of British Chambers of Commerce. 

Ceres is a UK technology business that develops fuel cells used for power generation, electrolysis for the creation of green hydrogen. It supplies advanced fuel cell technologies to global partners including Bosch, Weichai, Doosan and Miura to develop systems and products that address climate change for power generation, transportation, industry, and data centres.

HORIBA MIRA, whose headquarters is providing the base for the new facility, is a global provider of automotive engineering, research and test services, with over 75 years of experience in developing some of the world’s most iconic vehicles.

The development of the facility forms part of a multi-million-pound, long-term agreement between Ceres, a leading developer in clean energy technology, and HORIBA MIRA, a leading international automotive engineering and testing consultancy.

In addition to the new testing facilities the collaboration also includes the design, manufacture and certification of fuel cell testing systems, known as test stands, by the wider HORIBA group, in order that Ceres can deploy testing into international markets with solutions that are locally compliant.

Mark Garrett, Chief Operating Officer at Ceres, said: ‘The opening of this testing facility demonstrates the credibility of the growth plans we have at Ceres. The culmination of high growth technology and trusted testing means Ceres will be able to expand its global operations and position itself at the forefront of the international hydrogen economy and efforts to reach net zero. We look forward to our partnership with HORIBA MIRA continuing to go from strength-to-strength.’

Graeme Stewart, Chief Technical Officer at HORIBA MIRA, said: ‘We are pleased to celebrate this landmark moment in our partnership with Ceres. We believe this further underlines our stature as a premium provider of Testing-as-a-Service and we look forward to working alongside Ceres to help serve global markets with clean technology solutions.’