ROLE OF HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS IN THE ASSESSMENT OF THE TRANSPORT SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA

Sa？etak Hydrogen economy is the synonymous for sustainable energy system where pure hydrogen replaces fossil fuels – hydrocarbons. In order to be successful and sustainable hydrogen economy, hydrogen should be produced using using clean processes coupled with renewable energy sources. One of the recommended technique is the hydrogen production via process of water electrolysis using solar energy. In the last 10 years, there are great investments in technology development to get electrical energy from renewable energy sources. Although with a relatively low efficiency, solar energy, i.e. technology that uses solar energy, has a huge room for development. Thus, the implementation of solar technology (direct conversion of solar into electrical energy) covers the market of wide scale. Since photovoltaic cells can only produce energy during the day, the generated energy needs to be stored and used at night. Existing storage technology is insufficiently developed and very often expensive. Due to this fundamental limitation of existing storage technology, hydrogen technology as one of the efficient energy storage solutions, has been developing with an emphasis on hydrogen production using renewable energy sources either in mobile (transport) or stationary (back-up) applications