WAVE-H2 Industrial Research Platform Inaugurated

Reducing the use of fossil fuels in industry and making processes more flexible, resilient and climate-neutral: these are the goals of WAVE-H2, the industrial research platform funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. Its name stands for “Adaptable, Energy-Flexible and Connected H₂ Industrial Research Platform”. Developed and built by the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) and Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv), the platform provides manufacturers of industrial equipment, components and software with a realistic environment in which to develop new energy and hydrogen technologies, integrate them into existing systems and test them at an industrial scale.

Bringing Innovations From the Laboratory Into Practice

“With WAVE-H2, we have now achieved something that many people have worked towards for a long time: a hydrogen testing environment at an industrially relevant scale,” said Dorothee Bär, Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space, at the opening of the new WAVE-H2 site in Freudenstadt. “This allows innovations to reach practical application faster. It supports companies in switching to more sustainable production methods. We are strengthening the region and Germany as an industrial location.”

“If we want to meet our climate targets while safeguarding our prosperity, we need innovations that make their way from the laboratory into practice. Hydrogen is a key building block in this,” emphasised Cem Özdemir, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg. “With WAVE-H2, we have a research platform that delivers exactly what we need: researchers and industry working together to turn a good laboratory idea into a product that our businesses can actually use. This brings good research ideas to where they are needed.”

“The WAVE-H2 campus in Freudenstadt demonstrates how research and industry can work together: access to cutting-edge research, testing and development infrastructure, and partnerships are considered together from the outset,” said Petra Olschowski, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Science, Research and the Arts. “This enables rapid innovation cycles and close feedback between development and practical application, while preparing our region for the future. It allows us to work together to find solutions to the challenges of decarbonisation and future energy supply.”

Covering the Entire Hydrogen Value Chain

The new industrial research platform in Freudenstadt marks the launch of WAVE-H2’s second site. It complements the WAVE-H2 innovation modules inaugurated in January 2026 at ARENA2036 on the Stuttgart-Vaihingen campus. “We are proud of this new infrastructure, which connects research with knowledge and technology transfer,” said Professor Peter Middendorf, Rector of the University of Stuttgart. “It provides ideal conditions for researching and implementing sustainable energy solutions that can help industry move towards climate neutrality and drive economic transformation.”

WAVE-H2 covers the entire hydrogen value chain, from production and Power-to-X technologies to the development of chemical hydrogen storage and fuel cell technologies, through to decentralised hydrogen use concepts. Researchers and companies use the innovation modules in Stuttgart for laboratory-scale experiments. The industrial platform in Freudenstadt now also enables testing at an industrial scale. The University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) and Institute for Photovoltaics (ipv) developed WAVE-H2 and operate the new research and technology transfer infrastructure.

Making Production Systems Energy-Efficient and Flexible

“Technologies that integrate green hydrogen offer industry another pathway towards climate neutrality,” explained Professor Alexander Sauer, Director of EEP, and Professor Peter Birke, Head of Electrical Energy Storage Systems at ipv. “Green hydrogen can make industry more sustainable, particularly where processes require high temperatures and direct electrification is only possible to a limited extent.”

For example, hydrogen can replace fossil natural gas in industrial burners and furnaces used for melting, hardening, drying or recycling processes, significantly reducing CO₂ emissions. In addition, surplus renewable electricity can be converted into hydrogen using electrolysers and stored. When needed, the hydrogen can then be used in fuel cells or combined heat and power units to supply a production site with electricity and heat.

WAVE-H2 provides the infrastructure to research and test these applications and their interactions under realistic conditions at both laboratory and industrial scales. The platform goes well beyond developing and testing individual hydrogen components, such as electrolysers, by integrating them into digitalised, AI-supported production systems that are resilient, energy-efficient and flexible.

Integrating Different Energy Users

At the Stuttgart-Vaihingen campus, researchers are investigating how hydrogen can be produced through electrolysis and further processed into products such as methanol or ammonia. A fuel cell test bench enables research into converting the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity and heat.

In Freudenstadt, alongside testing individual components and equipment, the main focus is on dynamic energy generation, conversion, storage and use within integrated systems. The platform also enables the integration of different energy-consuming units, allowing hydrogen to be used flexibly in production processes and helping to make energy supply cost-effective and resilient.