Final Report Summary - HYACINTH (HYdrogen ACceptance IN the Transition pHase)
Executive Summary:
The project objectives are firstly to gain a deeper understanding of European-level social awareness and acceptance of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies; and secondly to help stakeholders to develop their products, services and infrastructures with the assistance of a tool that aids understanding of potential target audiences, including stakeholder expectations and perceptions of risks and potential barriers to acceptance.
To achieve these objectives, two studies were undertaken relating to awareness and acceptance of hydrogen technologies – one of the general public and one of selected stakeholders - in several EU countries. The studies identify the strength and nature of relevant attitudinal factors and also possible barriers of other types, such as relating to policy and regulation. The studies make cross-country comparisons in terms of public awareness, attitudes, acceptance and policy.
The general public sample consisted of 7,148 European citizens, questioned via on-line surveys in seven European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, and United Kingdom, The project also questioned 478 stakeholders via interviews and an on-line questionnaire survey in five EU countries: France, Germany, , Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom . The stakeholder study includes recommendations relating to governmental, political and regulatory support.
Finally, the data collected in both studies have informed the SAMT, a Social Acceptance Management toolbox. As described above, this provides an accessible interface to the study results, and is intended to support queries relevant to developers and/or sponsors of FCH technologies who may be in the position of wanting to progress from demonstration projects towards market acceptance and wider public adoption of FCH technologies.
Project Context and Objectives:
HYACINTH: Hydrogen Acceptance IN the Transition Phase
The social acceptance by the general public, the stakeholders and the potential customers of FCH projects and applications across Europe is widely recognized as a key dimension in the sustainable implementation of FCH technologies. If hydrogen and fuel cell technologies are to play a significant role in Europe’s new energy and transport systems, a careful consideration of social acceptance issues is needed.
The consortium: (logos annex 1)
The HYACINTH consortium is composed by 11 main partners from 5 different European countries. It is well balanced mix of industrial representative (I PLUS F and RCVT), opinion poll company (NORSTAT), Municipalities (ABERDEEN COUNCIL), scientific institutions (U OF SUNDERLAND, UNIVERSTITY OF LEEDS, CIEMAT, FRAUNHOFER) and regional representative partners from five different countries (Spain, France, Slovenia, United Kingdom and Germany) with complementary competences and expertise and this is one of the points of strength of the project.
CNH2: Centro Nacional del Hidrógeno (CNH2) – Spain: Public research and development center specialized in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
IPLUSF: IPLUSF France – France: Company specialized in strategic and business assessment for European companies in their R&D, innovation and environmental processes with experience in consultancy projects related to hydrogen and fuel cells.
FRAUNHOFER: Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI (Fraunhofer ISI) – Germany: Public research institute analyzing the origins and impacts of innovations, e.g. hydrogen technologies.
ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL: Aberdeen City Council (ACC) – United Kingdom: Municipality, end user with experience in hydrogen applications.
CIEMAT: Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT) – Spain: Public research body under the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness focused on energy and environmental issues.
CIDAUT: Foundation for Transport and Energy Research and Development (CIDAUT) – Spain: non-profit foundation for boosting the competitiveness and industrial development of companies in the transport, energy and industry sectors.
RCVT: Razvojni Center za Vodikove Tehnologije (RCVT) – Slovenia: Founded by five companies and two research institutes to boost research, development and applicable projects in the field of hydrogen and fuel cells.
NORSTAT: NORSTAT Services GmbH (NORSTAT) – Germany: Leading fieldwork agency in Europe, with many years of experience with all methods of survey research.
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS: Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds – United Kingdom: SRI integrates natural and social science in interdisciplinary environmental research.
UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND: University of Sunderland (SUNDERLAND) – United Kingdom: Higher Education Institution that has been involved in a number of regionally and European funded projects to develop hydrogen technologies.
IPLUSF: IPLUSF España – Spain: Company specialized in strategic and business assessment for European companies in their R&D, innovation and environmental processes with experience in consultancy projects related to hydrogen and fuel cells.
OBJECTIVES:
The issue of how the public and potential users perceive and respond to hydrogen technologies has been the objective of past research. Two main findings of this research have been, first, that public attitudes towards hydrogen technology vary across populations and time, influenced by a complex set of factors; and second, that gathering reliable data on the public attitudes towards hydrogen technologies requires careful conceptual and methodological considerations.
In general terms, current research on the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies faces three major challenges:
• Regarding the acceptance by the general public and future customers
• Regarding the levels of awareness and acceptance of the key stakeholders
• How to properly understand the acceptance process
Hydrogen technologies are being tested and implemented in a number of demonstration projects across European cities and regions. The identification and understanding of the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies may help officials, planners, developers and the public identify and address potential conflicts of interest and misunderstandings that may accompany development. Understanding and integrating the public needs and concerns with the management of hydrogen projects could be crucial for the successful development of hydrogen technologies.
The transition phase of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies is expected to happen within the next decade. As many European countries and companies face severe economic and social challenges, it will be difficult to allocate public funding to the introduction of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies on a broad-scale to the market, expecting higher cost and less comfortable infrastructure or lower reliability (childhood diseases) for early adopters.
Changing a running system, and switching to a new technology when competitive and reliable alternatives are in place, will require more than “just” environmental benefit and energy efficiency – it requires a true added-value to the early adopters (region and/or organization) or high pressures on the current system (e.g. increases in oil prices).
The overall purpose of HYACINTH project is to gain a deeper understanding of the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies across Europe by combining specific qualitative and quantitative methods and samples of European citizens and stakeholders. HYACINTH aims to:
• Identify and understand awareness and acceptance of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies and perceived potential benefits (added value) in the general public and at selected stakeholders, expected to be relevant to the implementation of FCH projects and activities in the transition phase (industry supplier, industry and private customer, administration and politics, interest groups and media),
• Identify the main drivers of social awareness and acceptance of FCH technologies in order to provide recommendations on how and what to best communicate and engage general public and stakeholders involved in regional hydrogen energy and FCH projects and activities,
• Support stakeholders (industry, project managers, policy makers...) by providing a social acceptance research toolbox, enabling a regional understanding of the acceptance process and providing tools to manage expectations to keep or increase acceptance at selected stakeholder groups and the general public.
Public awareness: Public awareness of technological, scientific and innovation issues is a function of many factors, including exposure to ideas or artefacts, the degree of attention that people pay to these and their salience. If something is of little interest or incomprehensible to people, it is less likely to be remembered, reflected upon or evaluated. The same applies if an object has no real physical presence for people, which is of course the case with technologies that are new. One of the benefits of awareness-related opinion survey work is that, repeated on a longitudinal basis, it can track awareness as it changes over time. HYACINTH lays the ground for such opinion tracking in relation to hydrogen fuel cells, should repeat studies take place.
Social acceptance: The social acceptance of new products, applications, and technologies is a function of the attitudes, behaviours, opinions and activities resulting from the interactions between stakeholders, the general public or lay society as a whole and the proposed technologies. Social acceptance of a technology is thus the result of a complex relationship between technology and society.
Deep social research on hydrogen acceptance would provide insight into the state of public and stakeholder acceptance (including socio-political and market actors), and about relevant factors affecting those levels of awareness and acceptance.
This would result in useful information to understand better how society and stakeholders respond to innovative technologies and applications. Therefore, HYACINTH is focused on understanding the influencing factors in the acceptance process (taking into account a certain technology, project or system specification). This is focused on particular on the specific transition phase of market implementation, between the demonstration and market phases.
The aim of the HYACINTH project is to provide evidence-based knowledge that helps to optimize the societal management of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in the transition phase.
The following questions are among those to be considered when seeking to understand acceptance processes and their implications in the transition phase of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies:
1. How do the public and stakeholders view hydrogen energy and FCH technologies? What are their levels of awareness, attitudes and beliefs?
2. Who are the publics and stakeholders involved? How do awareness, attitudes and beliefs vary across populations in different countries?
3. What are the implications of the above for planning the scale-up of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies?
4. What needs to be done when? At what points in time is social acceptance critical?
Project Results:
The objective of HYACINTH project is to achieve a greater understanding of the social acceptance of FCH technologies and applications at European level, to develop a tool to facilitate the product development and market introduction being better aimed to the target audience, giving better response to the expectations and deducted the risks or barriers to their acceptance.
Work packages (figure 1: chart flow annex 2)
– WP1 ” Project management” has been running through the whole life of the project and it is where all coordination and management activities has been done: meetings, reporting, deliverables, day to day work. The webpage design and development is here included.
The objective of this WP was to ensure reaching the objectives planned in HYACINTH project, in good quality within budget and schedule’s time limits. For this reason, this WP has ensured:
- Fluid communication flow
- Adequate planning and follow-up of the project
- The quality of field and experimental work and of written material
- Efficient decision-making procedures.
- Fulfilment of contractual obligations of the project in relation to reporting and financial matters and other issues that may arise
- Reliable financial control.
The following tasks has been developed:
Task 1.1. Day to Day work management: This task has included the “day to day work” to reach the objectives of Hyacinth project during all period of implementation of the project. Apart from the Kick off Meeting (KoM) held at the beginning of the project, it has been held several progress meetings each six month to ensure the expected results. The aim of these meetings has been to monitor the results according DOW, milestones and deliverables.
Task 1.2. Financial Management: Each partner has been responsible for the financial control in his particular entity.
Task 1.3. Work Package Technical Management. This task has included all activities related to the management of technological aspects and issues. Each WP leader has been responsible for the correct technical management of his WP. During the meetings, and when has been required by the coordinator or Technical Committee, the person in charge of each WP has reported about the situation of his WP.
Task 1.4. Communication Between Partners: To ensure a good internal and external communication, several tools (e-mail, meetings, teleconferences, reports, webpage) has been developed and used. For the communication between partners, the webpage private area was developed (http://hyacinthproject.eu/) with a private part as repository of documentation and to exchange information between partners.
Task 1.5. Quality and risk management: It has been established a Quality and Risk Management Plan (RMP) taking into account the critical path of the project, their probability and the contingency actions.
In addition to avoid conflicts a project structure comprised by Steering Committee, Technical Committee and Regional Committee was established and approved as well.
The technical WPs (WP2 to WP6) have been developed in a sequential way as follows:
– WP2 “Context analysis”, has been aimed to gather information that could be useful for the rest of the WP. WP2 has been divided in different tasks: the first one about projects and policies in Europe that could affect and be useful for the analysis and interpretation of the results (WP5) and to feed the toolbox (WP6); the second task, gathering the information of stakeholders that are going to be contacted to carry out the interviews and the questionnaires (WP4); and the third one focused on looking for all the past projects, studies or activities related with public awareness and acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies that could affect the methodological design of the study (WP3).
Task 2.1. Identification of European existing hydrogen projects: The objective of this task has been to select the projects that could be used as first search for stakeholders to be asked to answer the interviews and the questionnaires and to be targeted for dissemination. The main results are a list of demonstration projects across Europe, with partners belonging to one of the five selected countries for the stakeholders study. There are European funded projects and national funded ones.
An analysis has been made for all the projects in order to establish relations between projects and countries and also with stakeholders that participate in these projects, to identify and select the most interesting projects to be contacted in the WP4 Data collection. The following information of the studied projects has been gathered: countries with partners in the project, project acronym, type of project, type of application, co-funding body (if any), project cost and volume of funding obtained, partners involved and its country, coordinator, project status, conclusion date, duration. A total of 139 European and 33 national projects have been studied under this task and appear in Deliverable 2.1 European Projects and Policies alongside with the information obtained for the next task of hydrogen policy around Europe which aimed to support the methodological design of WP3.
The main conclusion of the identification and analysis of projects is that there is a clear relationship between the level of involvement of Governments and Administrations in the development of the hydrogen economy and the type and number of European projects in which each country participates, as countries with specific plans for the development of these technologies, such as Germany, UK or France, have a high level of participation in European demonstration projects.
Task 2.2 Collection of hydrogen policy around Europe: This task focused on policy and the associated mechanisms mainly at a national level that could influence awareness and acceptance directly or with indirect measures. Data has been gathered at a European level and also for the seven selected countries targeted by the public survey: Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom. As commented previously, this part, alongside the European projects task is shown in the D2.1. This part of the deliverable has been used in WP5 to see if there are some relation between the results of the studies and the level of support.
The main conclusions of the deliverable D2.1. are that the data gathered from policies and mechanisms to support FCH technologies and its implementation confirm with some minor deviations the initial selection of countries made:
▪ Advanced Hydrogen Support: Germany, United Kingdom and Norway
▪ Medium Hydrogen Support: Belgium, France and Spain
▪ Low Hydrogen Support: Slovenia
With Germany the most supporting country and followed by United Kingdom and Norway with a clear high support followed closely by France which could be also considered there; Belgium and Spain as medium support countries, but with Spain lower than Belgium; and finally Slovenia with a low support.
Only one country, Germany, has developed a complete framework to support FCH technologies and its implementation. Nevertheless, there are some public-private initiatives at a national level in the high supporting countries for the refuelling infrastructure deployment for transport applications. Each country has its own mechanisms, plans and strategies and in most cases the support is technologically neutral between many alternatives like alternative fuels or cogeneration devices that include hydrogen but does not favour it. The support and the applications already in contact with the general public are mainly due to demonstration projects.
Task 2.3 Identification of hydrogen stakeholders: This task has been aimed at searching possible and suitable stakeholders for the data collection (personal interviews and online specific survey for stakeholders) and for the dissemination of the results of the project in the five European countries where the stakeholders' study is going to be made: France, Germany, Spain, Slovenia and United Kingdom.
The study for the stakeholders’ part has been made only in five countries due to the difficulty to search, select the adequate stakeholders and, specially, to contact them in countries without direct representation of project partners. A first selection of stakeholders was made for the selected countries to carry out the interviews. This selection had to be extended to get enough positive contacts for both the interviews and the on-line questionnaires and a more complete list has been obtained for every country.
The information obtained has been used to elaborate a smaller list for the personal interviews that were going to be completed in WP4 As outlined below these interviews are usually attached to specific demonstration projects. The information obtained has feed also WP4 in the stakeholder’s part (online survey) and WP7 in the dissemination activities.
The search for stakeholders has been made in each country by the local partners and reported through the Regional Committee. This required each country to compile a list of stakeholders that would create a pool of potential interviewees and respondents. The lists were compiled and presented in D2.2 List of Stakeholders.
As conclusions of this task, are that there is no data available that describes the hydrogen community, thus it is not possible to identify a representative sample of the community or more precisely to evaluate in how far the lists produced are representative. Therefore, a selection criterion was decided and a validation of the lists through discussions with members of the hydrogen community was made through the interviews asking for other stakeholders.
The stakeholders were divided in three main groups, identifying if they participated in some relevant demonstration project or not. These groups are:
▪ Government Agencies and Local Authorities.
▪ Industry and Research Bodies: this group were made up of representatives of the hydrogen industry associations or research bodies working within this field.
▪ Industrial Partners: this group is made up of those stakeholders who developed, implemented or operated hydrogen technologies.
Over 800 stakeholders have been found in five countries and, with the exception of Slovenia which is a small country with low levels of hydrogen support all countries have gathered lists with high numbers of stakeholders, and many of them were felt to be important players in the hydrogen field and had been key movers in various hydrogen and fuel cell projects.
Task 2.4 Methodological experiences to measure social acceptance in the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells field: theoretical framework: This task aimed at identifying methods and surveys of previous research on social acceptance, general public awareness and attitudes towards the use of the hydrogen and FCH technologies. It also aimed at describing the current level of knowledge and to identify gaps in the literature which need to be closed in the project.
For this purpose, a review about theories used previously to know the social acceptance about this kind of technologies has been carried out, and has been presented as Deliverable 2.3. Report on methodologies and factors. The report is based on a review of academic and grey literatures. Five areas are covered in the report regarding the research on public and stakeholder acceptance of FCH technologies:
▪ The concept of social acceptance of FCH technologies
▪ Studied populations and stakeholder groups. Types of populations and samples studied
▪ Socio-psychological dimensions studied in the literature (e.g. awareness, knowledge, familiarity, global attitude, emotions, acceptance and support, etc.)
▪ Hydrogen and fuel cell applications under study. Technological objects under study (e.g. hydrogen vehicles, hydrogen infrastructures).
▪ Methodological approaches. Social research methods and specific data collection tools implemented in the reviewed studies.
The report is divided in two main chapters, one on the public and the other one on stakeholders’ awareness and acceptance for hydrogen technologies.
The main conclusions drawn from the review are:
▪ The majority of studies have focused on specific countries or regions. Very few cross-country studies systematically comparing public attitudes to FCH applications have been found.
▪ The majority of studies have focused on transport applications. Very few studies have focused on FCH stationary residential applications.
▪ In general, studies tend to show that low levels of knowledge of - and interest in - hydrogen among the public nonetheless coexist with relatively high levels of acceptance.
▪ Although no systematic comparisons have been found regarding the acceptance of specific applications, public attitudes towards FCH technologies might vary depending on the type of application considered or even the way hydrogen is produced.
And the final remark from D2.3 is that considerable degree of knowledge of hydrogen acceptance in Europe has been accumulated over the last two decades.
– WP3 “Methodological design”. This WP, based on the work carried out in WP2, has focused on the specification of the research design (including the specification of the general strategy, the design of the sample and the design of the data collection instruments) of two studies to assess public and stakeholder acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in Europe. One of the main outcomes of this WP has been the design of the questionnaires to be implemented in the Data Collection (WP4). Instructions and protocols have been developed in this WP too, to be used also in the WP4.
Task 3.1 Development of a common research approach: The main objective in this task was to develop the basic elements of the research design. It built on the outcomes derived in WP2. Two studies were designed in this task:
▪ Study 1. Public awareness and acceptance of FCH technologies. From a methodological point of view, this study is based on a cross-sectional questionnaire survey with members of the public in seven EU countries. The survey used a self-reported questionnaire developed specifically for the objectives of the project to measure public attitudes towards FCH technologies and partially based on the technology acceptance model. It focused on two specific applications as they are the most advanced and therefore most likely to create a market in the nearer future: i) Fuel cell stationary applications for heating and electricity; ii) Fuel cell transport applications and related infrastructures.
▪ Study 2. Stakeholder acceptance, expectations and views of FCH technologies. This study focuses on the collection of qualitative (semi-structured interviews) and quantitative data (via questionnaires) with members of the stakeholders groups in five EU countries. Specifically, this study consists of a survey to be implemented with energy stakeholders and hydrogen experts and semi-structured interviews to be carried out with members of the stakeholder’s groups around selected hydrogen demonstration cases.
Task 3.2 Development of questionnaires (general public): Following the research design specified in D3.1 Hyacinth social hydrogen acceptance and awareness research concept, a questionnaire specifically for the general public study was developed. This questionnaire is documented in D3.2 Questionnaires to the general public and selected stakeholders and which also includes some screenshots of the online survey developed in WP4 that have been used also in that WP for the data collection from public.
The questionnaire is structured in five main sections:
a) sociodemographic data;
b) awareness, familiarity and uninformed evaluation of FCH technologies;
c) attitudes towards FCH stationary applications;
d) attitudes towards FCH vehicles;
e) other questions.
Sections c) and d) constitute the core of the questionnaire and include a number of items designed to measure awareness, familiarity, emotions, perception of benefits and costs, evaluation of consequences, attitude, acceptance and support regarding two specific applications: stationary fuel cells (micro CHP) and transport applications (fuel cell vehicles and busses) as they are the first ones to enter a mass market. As a low level of knowledged was assumed and confirmed in earlier studies, the questionnaire also included sections that provided information on the technologies under study.
(Figure 2: Design of the Questionnaire for general public annex 3)
The result of this task is a master questionnaire developed in English. In WP4 it has been implemented online and tested, and then translated into the other six languages (Flemish, French, German, Norwegian, Slovenian and Spanish) by experts, so the survey is presented in the native language of the participants.
Task 3.3 Development of questionnaires (stakeholders, quantitative): As detailed in the D3.1 and based in the work developed in the methodological design, a specific questionnaire was developed to: assess stakeholders’ attitudes and views regarding FCH technologies in general and also in two fields of applications in particular: fuel cell transport applications and related infrastructures and fuel cell stationary applications.
This questionnaire was aimed at identifying stakeholders’ expectations about the future of FCH applications, particularly the policy signals that influence the propensity of firms to invest or not to invest and the decision-making of incumbents in the area; and to identify expectations about likely market development.
Data on stakeholders’ views on FCH applications have been collected online in WP4 from five EU countries (Germany, France, Slovenia, Spain and UK) drawing on the lists of stakeholders assembled in earlier WPs.
Task 3.4 Development of questionnaires (stakeholder, qualitative): The objective of the qualitative study has been to examine stakeholders’ views on hydrogen fuel cell applications. The main goal of the study has been to get a deeper understanding of the socio-political and market acceptance of these applications.
A protocol for semi-structured interviews with members of various stakeholders groups around hydrogen and fuel cell projects (past or ongoing hydrogen pilot or demonstration projects) in five EU countries (France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and UK) was designed in this task.
The questionnaire for the qualitative interviews was designed to focus on questions regarding expectations and experiences with the technologies and the operation of hydrogen energy and FCH systems. The interviews have been held face-to-face where possible or by phone and lasted about 30-45 minutes per stakeholder. The questions have addressed technological as well as regional aspects, and also left time for individual focus.
The result of this task is an interview protocol . The interview guide as well as the questionnaire has been developed in English and then it has been translated into German, French, Spanish and Slovenian. Interviews (WP4) were carried out in each country by a local researcher from the project team.
– WP4 “Data collection”, with three parts: personal interviews with stakeholders, on-line questionnaires for selected stakeholders (both study 2) and a general public survey (study 1). The obtained information has been collected and processed to be used in the data analysis and interpretation (WP5) in two parts: the online questionnaires (stakeholders) and online surveys (general public) on one side and the stakeholder interviews on another.
Task 4.1 Development of the online questionnaires: The objective of this task has been to implement the online questionnaires both for the general public survey and for the stakeholders’ quantitative part, from the master questionnaires developed in WP3 in English where the order of the questions was defined and pictures to support the understanding of the subject were chosen, etc.
In order to make the interviews as interesting and enjoyable for the participants as possible, different question types and media material was chosen and both, the English also versions of the public and the stakeholder questionnaire were scripted. Once all language versions were finalized the different language versions were implemented, scripted and tested by the partners.
For the general public survey, the questionnaire for the public awareness study was translated into German, Spanish, Norwegian, Slovenian, French and Flemish and content checks were conducted by the partners to ensure that all translations and wordings are correct and the questions are easily understandable for the public.
The stakeholder quantitative questionnaire was translated by the different partners of the consortium into German, Spanish, Slovenian and French. Language and content checks were conducted by the partners to ensure that all translations and wordings are correct.
The result of this task were the implemented questionnaires in the native languages and prepared to be launched to collect the information, which was done in the next task.
Task 4.2 Quantitative data collection: The aim of this task has been the data collection from the general public and the stakeholders’ quantitative part, which was carried out through on-line tools.
The public awareness has been done in seven countries via online access panels in the UK, Germany, Norway, Spain, France, Slovenia and Belgium. In each of these countries more than 1,000 surveys have been conducted.
(Figure 3: Distribution of the sample per country studied in general public; annex 4)
The proceeding was as follows: invitations to take part in the survey were sent out automatically through the access panel system to panellists recruited by Norstat. The first batch of invitations were sent out in order to receive about 5% of the overall sample per country (soft launch). The responses of those were checked to make sure that everything works from a technical point of view and that participants do not repeatedly quit at a certain point during the interview. Once the data of the soft launch were checked more invites were sent out. By the end of April 2016 all data were collected and cleaned. Cleaning the data means selecting cheaters (for example straight-liners, participants who only needed less than half of the time suggested) and replacing the cheaters in order to get the full 1,000 interviews per country. The compiled data were sent out to the consortium in order to start the analysis.
The stakeholder study was done in five countries: UK, Germany, France, Spain and Slovenia. The invites for the stakeholders to take part in the survey were sent out via email with a country specific link to the questionnaire. The invites were sent out by the different members of the consortium from the respective country. The decision was made that sending out from an email account from a person working in the sector in the relevant country would be better than from an online access panel email system, which the stakeholders will not recognize. All data were collected from March to June 2016.
(Table 1: Contacted stakeholders and sample sizes in each country; annex 5)
Task 4.3 Qualitative data collection: The objective of this task has been to perform the interviews designed in WP3, and to thereby collect qualitative data. The main target group were representatives from ongoing and former hydrogen demonstration projects (transport and stationary applications). From the initial lists of stakeholders and projects developed in WP2 a selection for each country was made by local partners in discussion with the project consortium. These initial lists were collected through personal contacts, contacting national hydrogen platforms, researching the internet and project platforms and by using the snowball system (asking contacted stakeholders for further contacts).
An interview guideline providing instructions to the interviewer as well as interview questions was developed in WP3 and is documented in D3.2. Further templates, e.g. exemplary emails to contact potential interview partners were provided for the partners in the different countries who were responsible for the interviews in order to follow a standardised procedure.
Interviews were conducted by the partners in each country (France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and UK). Interviews were carried out between 13th November 2015 and 8th June 2016. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone; some of them face-to-face. The interviews lasted between 15 and 90 minutes; most of them around 30 minutes. Overall 145 interviews were collected (between 11 and 39 interviews per country), most of them were audio-recorded and interview summaries were created either from the audio recording or extensive notes taken during the interview. A template for the summaries was also provided to document them in a standardised way.
(Figure 4: HYACINTH project details annex 6)
– WP5 “Data analysis and interpretation”. This WP was aimed at examining and reporting the data collected in WP4 regarding the public awareness and acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in Europe. The results of this WP have been reported in D5.2 Integrated Report on general findings on public acceptance and D5.1. Report on results of the stakeholder survey. The information obtained has been used for information treated in the toolbox (WP6).
Task 5.1 Descriptive analysis of survey data (general public) at the country level :The aim of this task has been to carry out a descriptive analysis of the survey data generated for each country. Descriptive statistics have been used for displaying the basic features of the variables in the study, linked to awareness and acceptance. Simple summaries, together with simple graphics analysis have been provided.
The results of this task have been the first step for the analysis of overall results. The data have been analysed using SPSS 19 software (SPSS, Chicago, Illinois, United States) and Excel software (Microsoft, Redmond, Washington, United States). Descriptive analyses of the relevant variables have been performed for all the countries.
Task 5.2 Comparative analysis of survey data: A report has been provided on similarities and differences across countries in Europe by means of the appropriate statistical procedure (crosstabs, comparison of means, correlations...). Contingency table analyses have been performed to study the relationship between responses on dependent variables and other independent variables such as age, gender, geographic region and other demographic variables. Differences in the frequencies of different survey responses were tested for significance by using a χ2 test of proportions and Anova for means, and p values below 0.01 were considered statistically significant. In addition, it has been carried out an analysis related to the classification of countries regarding its level of policy support.
• Advanced Hydrogen Support: Germany, United Kingdom and Norway
• Medium Hydrogen Support: Belgium, France and Spain
• Low Hydrogen Support: Slovenia
Task 5.3: Multivariate analysis of integrated survey data: Multiple regression and path analyses have been conducted to investigate associations among various dependent and independent variables, with difference tests used to make cross-country comparisons. This has allowed examining the effects on public attitudes of potential explanatory variables as familiarity, level of hydrogen implementation, type of hydrogen technology, information provided and other personal, psychological, social and contextual variables
Task 5.4. Analysis of stakeholder survey: Statistical analysis with SPSS software has been carried out at three levels: descriptive analysis to understand variable distribution in each national sample, bivariate and multivariate analysis, as well as transnational analysis to compare involved countries. In addition, findings were also discussed in the light the classification of countries depending on policies of support.
Task 5.5: Thematic analysis of stakeholder’s interviews: A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts has been carried out for each country. In this sense, a coding protocol has been developed for do analysis among the countries.
Furthermore, it is important to remark that a video has been recorded related to the opinions ans impressions of Stakeholders after driving a FCEV at WHEC 2016 congress (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHyXGWxCzg)
For Public Acceptance Study, the main results have been:
▪ Less than half of the population in the seven countries is aware of the existence of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in the context of energy production.
▪ Public awareness is significantly lower for residential applications and higher for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
▪ The level of familiarity with both applications is low (less than 10% of respondents consider themselves familiar)
▪ The majority of the population in the seven studied countries have a positive initial attitude towards FCH technologies. The label associated to hydrogen and fuel cells seems to invoke positive feelings and thoughts among respondents.
▪ After processing relevant information, respondents in the seven countries are likely to accept and support the adoption of residential fuel cells and FCEVs.
▪ Overall, the seven studied populations were similar in their attitudes towards FCH technologies. However, the results point to relevant differences in awareness and acceptance of FCH applications and specific investment intentions are low in the near future.
For Stakeholders Acceptance Study, the main results have been:
▪ No strong signals that FCH technologies are yet breaking out of their niches into the mainstream ‘regimes’ of fuel supply and provision of mobility and heat and power.
▪ Variation across countries: associated with differing levels of government investment in R&D programmes (Germany and Spain being at opposite poles).
▪ R&D stakeholders have a strong positive appraisal of FCH technologies, but with limitations:
▪ cost and limited regulatory, political and commercial support;
▪ competition from other technologies, especially electric vehicles in the mobility sector and inter-related obstacles.
▪ Stakeholders view on market development: medium to long term rather than near term.
▪ FCH technologies view: realistic niche potential in the shorter term
▪ uninterruptible power, auxiliary power and high power demand such as fork lifts and heavy goods vehicles.
▪ Lack of public support is not to be expected to become a major challenge if the framework conditions for the technologies develop in a supportive way.
The results of WP5 have been documented in the following deliverables:
• D5.1 Report on results of the stakeholder survey: Report on results of the qualitative and quantitative stakeholder survey
• D5.2 Integrated Report on general findings on public acceptance.
On the other hand, summaries of both reports have been developed and translated to five languages and published in HYACINTH website (http://hyacinthproject.eu/):
• HYACINTH Project – Findings on stakeholders’ views on the social acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell technologies.
• HYACINTH Project. Findings on public acceptance.
• Overview and policy implications.
– WP6 “Development of management toolbox”aimed at presenting the final results of the project: a social awareness report and a toolbox, or specific software database to show a response for the criteria that would be selected like the perceived relative advantage of the technology, the perceived compatibility with existing values and practices, the perceived simplicity and ease of use, the “trialability” and observable results. The toolbox should help stakeholders to better communicate or target their products or services.
Task 6.1: Definition of contents, structural concept: This toolbox has been developed to help promoters and decision makers to integrate issues related to social acceptance into their developments. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a technique used to understand:
• what is important to their customers,
• how well they are addressing those issues in order to adjust their designs/services accordingly and
• ensure that these vital issues are not lost during the product/service development process.
The tool box enables users to filter the data that they interrogate via a number of filtering questions designed to narrow the search such as the age group of the respondents, their country and region of residence, the type of application the user is interested in, etc. the toolbox then selects the data that matches these filters and presents the findings to the user as a report that may be downloaded in pdf format.
(Figure 5: The QFD model annex 7)
Thus, the toolbox offers a set of information facilitating decisions on promotion activities, market preparation, and effective policy support mechanisms, all of it particularized for a given European region and a certain technology.
Task 6.2: Evaluation of interview results: The data gathered in WP4 & WP5 have been incorporated into the Level of Awareness and Acceptance 1st stage model. This is the core in the tool box (SAMT). The model has been used to provide statistical quantitative data for evaluation purposes. The evaluation will use the model & tool box to ascertain key bottleneck, barriers & challengers linked to social awareness.
The public and stakeholder quantitative research both begin with some demographic questions regarding the respondent. Following this the data collected falls into three broad categories:
1. Relating to stationary applications.
2. Relating to transport applications.
3. Knowledge and Experience.
4. Trust.
5. Positive and Negative Affects.
6. Perceived consequences.
7. Attitude.
8. Initial acceptance.
9. Acceptance.
The qualitative research data have been also mapped onto this model in order to match responses from interviewees to the themes around which the quantitative data has been arranged. Thus, the tool can take advantage of several search filters, for example to narrow down the search using the demographic data, to only that which is applicable to the technology application under review.
(Figure 6: SAMT general operation. Annex 8)
The structure of the SAMT is explained in the deliverable D6.1. SAMT (Tool Box) database and basic Structure.
Task 6.3: Development of methodologies: Utilizing the first results the 1st stage model has been tested and evaluated. From this, the model has been optimized for general use and for different core areas: mobile and stationary applications. For the optimization of the toolbox, some experimental toolbox sessions have been carried out, which have provided enough information to improve the model.
The sessions for the experimental toolbox held have been described in the deliverable D6.3. Optimized and tested SAMT. The report summarizes the feedback received by the development team of the SAMT from pilot studies carried out within an existing project and a sample of the workshops carried out to demonstrate the SAMT and provide stakeholders with the opportunity to use the toolbox for themselves.
In general, the toolbox was well received with stakeholders feeling confident that it raised issues that they had not thought of and provided advice to assist them in overcoming these issues. The toolbox proved simple to use and provided clear advice and guidance to the user.
Task 6.4: Preparation of tool box / handbook: The optimized model has been utilized to analysis core data for the tool box. It has been developed a supporting hand book for SAMT, D 6.4. Tool Box Handbook and Best Practice Case Study.
The deliverable provides a handbook or user guide to the operation of the SAMT. It is designed to guide developers step by step through operation of the SAMT and provide helpful insights into the information provided as a result of a particular set of queries. The toolbox links to and extracts from a series of best practice case studies the provide background and context to the responses of those who have contributed their opinions and knowledge to the toolbox.
Thus, the toolbox offers a set of information facilitating decisions on promotion activities, market preparation, and effective policy support mechanisms, all of it particularized for a given European country and a certain technology.
Task 6.5: Design and implementation: The results of Task 6.4 have been used to develop a fully functional tool box ( https://hyacinth.sunderland.ac.uk/). The results obtained from the toolbox have been compared to the qualitative and quantitative research studies carried out in WP4 and WP5 and the tool box has been found to function satisfactorily.
The deliverable, D6.2. Level of Awareness and Acceptance model for real time data evaluation of the survey results, presents a review of methods for predicting acceptance of FCH technologies based on social acceptance models and surveys. It focuses mostly on the area of FCH technologies which are relatively new in general domestic use and therefore unknown from social acceptance aspect.
Finally, the deliverable D6.5. Social Awareness report covering WP3, WP4 & WP6 results, reviews this research and investigates differences between stakeholders and the general public in seven and five EU states. It is focused on the review the performance of the SAMT when highlighting these differences and demonstrates its validity as a development tool.
The report concludes with a set of recommendations for policy makers and FCH developers that should increase progress towards mass market acceptance for FCH technologies and improve public engagement.
– WP7 “Dissemination”, as well as the WP1, has been running the entire life of the project. The aim of the WP is to engage stakeholders in the project and in the use and spreading of the results of the project (the two studies and the toolbox).
Task 7.1 Dissemination tools: The deliverable D7.1. Dissemination Plan established the strategy to be followed in the project to engage stakeholders interested in FCH technologies and in the results of the project (studies and the toolbox). It has been established as dissemination tools such as brochure, leaflets, posters, press release, academic papers that have been used for different target groups and project outputs.
Task 7.2. Engagement ok key stakeholders and preparation of background material: The objective of this task has been to engage stakeholders by different means of communication, events and activities during the project. In addition, expand the dissemination database and developed more tools for communication.
In a first stage, it was identified and planned key tools for communication (brochures, posters, academic papers, newsletters, website, social networks....) and events described in deliverables D7.1. and D7.3. Calendar of Events. In addition, the project has been in contact with international and national associations and others related to hydrogen technologies, in order to expand the database of stakeholders.
By the events mentioned before a great quantity of stakeholders has been contacted for providing information about the overall objective, specific objectives of the project, deliverables, toolbox and other results. In this sense, it has been prepared the material for dissemination such as: HYACINTH-General Brochure, Results from the general public opinion poll, Findings on stakeholders’ views and poster presented in the conference Energy Research in the Social Science , poster presented in the German Conference for Transport Psychology at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Bergisch Gladbach and poster presented in World Hydrogen Energy Conference 2016 (WHEC 2016).
Furthermore, all stakeholders recruited during the project and in the events (conferences, congress, workshops...) were included in the database for digital mailing. On the other hand, it has been also included in this database the representatives of associations who were contacted by the consortium and showed interest in knowing the results of HYACINTH project.
Task 7.3. Dissemination of key results: The aim of this task has been to make presentations at key FC&H2 events in different parts of Europe organised to engage and inform key FC and H2 stakeholders and project coordinators. After that, in the second period of the project and once the results of the interviews and toolbox have been obtained, the objective and results have been disseminated until the end the project. In this sense, it has been made communications of the HYACINTH results in different conferences such as: WHEC 2016, ECOS 2016, SENIX 2016, Programme Review Days 2016, EERA 2016, EFCW 2016, EEVC 2016, Energy for society 2016...etc.
Task 7.4. Publishing of project results and final report: The objective of this task has been to held workshops with key stakeholders to present the project findings and the management toolkit. The partners have managed workshops of HYACINTH in UK, France, Slovenia, Germany and Spain. The results of these workshops are explained in deliverable D7.4. Report of workshops held.
The HYACINTH project is aware of the need to disseminate and communicate the results obtained, this work has been carried out with a double purpose. On the one hand, to show to the main drivers of FCH technologies the results obtained within the project, and on the other hand, to obtain feedback of their opinion on them, so that the project can improve the results, as well as improving the developed SAMT.
A workshop has been held in each of the countries where a project participant belongs, so that information can be presented to all stakeholders at least in each of the study countries.
In each of the workshops, once the general objective of the project has been showed, it has been explained the results of D 5.2. and D.5.1 countries involved, number of participants, methodology followed and results obtained, as well as the operation of the SAMT.
After then, it has been given questionnaires where the attendees were asked about the project and its results, as well as their interest. Finally, they were asked about their opinion on measures that should be proposed to increase the use of hydrogen technologies and fuel cells.
Finally, the deliverable D 7.5. Final dissemination report, includes all the dissemination activities developed throughout HYACINTH project life. This document shows the achieved results related the objectives originally proposed in the Deliverable 7.1. With more than 20 contributions to different relevant conferences and seminars across Europe and a relevant role on Social Networks, the HYACINTH project has been successful in dissemination to the general audience and the external and internal stakeholders the results of the stakeholder survey and general finding on public acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cells technologies.
Potential Impact:
The two studies carried out in the framework of the project will be of great utility to the industry, stakeholders and policy makers for the promotion of the use of hydrogen technologies. It is considered that having identified the knowledge and acceptance of the technologies in the different countries and regions, as well as the needs of future users and customers, will allow to promote the market and demand of applications based on hydrogen and fuel cells.
Another important result of the project to consider is the development of the SAMT toolbox, Social Acceptance Management Toolbox, with data obtained from both studies, which will be a very useful tool that will allow companies or policy makers to identify in a Country and Region specific their familiarity with the applications, needs, their interests and requirements. Provide practical advice to developers and/or sponsors of FCH technologies that they now intend to progress from a completed demonstration project or phase to full market acceptance and wide public adoption. https://hyacinth.sunderland.ac.uk/
List of Websites:
Website: http://hyacinthproject.eu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HYACINTHPROJECT
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHyXGWxCzg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hyacinthproject
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/start/join?session_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fgroups%2F7055586&trk=login_reg_redirect
The project objectives are firstly to gain a deeper understanding of European-level social awareness and acceptance of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies; and secondly to help stakeholders to develop their products, services and infrastructures with the assistance of a tool that aids understanding of potential target audiences, including stakeholder expectations and perceptions of risks and potential barriers to acceptance.
To achieve these objectives, two studies were undertaken relating to awareness and acceptance of hydrogen technologies – one of the general public and one of selected stakeholders - in several EU countries. The studies identify the strength and nature of relevant attitudinal factors and also possible barriers of other types, such as relating to policy and regulation. The studies make cross-country comparisons in terms of public awareness, attitudes, acceptance and policy.
The general public sample consisted of 7,148 European citizens, questioned via on-line surveys in seven European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, and United Kingdom, The project also questioned 478 stakeholders via interviews and an on-line questionnaire survey in five EU countries: France, Germany, , Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom . The stakeholder study includes recommendations relating to governmental, political and regulatory support.
Finally, the data collected in both studies have informed the SAMT, a Social Acceptance Management toolbox. As described above, this provides an accessible interface to the study results, and is intended to support queries relevant to developers and/or sponsors of FCH technologies who may be in the position of wanting to progress from demonstration projects towards market acceptance and wider public adoption of FCH technologies.
Project Context and Objectives:
HYACINTH: Hydrogen Acceptance IN the Transition Phase
The social acceptance by the general public, the stakeholders and the potential customers of FCH projects and applications across Europe is widely recognized as a key dimension in the sustainable implementation of FCH technologies. If hydrogen and fuel cell technologies are to play a significant role in Europe’s new energy and transport systems, a careful consideration of social acceptance issues is needed.
The consortium: (logos annex 1)
The HYACINTH consortium is composed by 11 main partners from 5 different European countries. It is well balanced mix of industrial representative (I PLUS F and RCVT), opinion poll company (NORSTAT), Municipalities (ABERDEEN COUNCIL), scientific institutions (U OF SUNDERLAND, UNIVERSTITY OF LEEDS, CIEMAT, FRAUNHOFER) and regional representative partners from five different countries (Spain, France, Slovenia, United Kingdom and Germany) with complementary competences and expertise and this is one of the points of strength of the project.
CNH2: Centro Nacional del Hidrógeno (CNH2) – Spain: Public research and development center specialized in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
IPLUSF: IPLUSF France – France: Company specialized in strategic and business assessment for European companies in their R&D, innovation and environmental processes with experience in consultancy projects related to hydrogen and fuel cells.
FRAUNHOFER: Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI (Fraunhofer ISI) – Germany: Public research institute analyzing the origins and impacts of innovations, e.g. hydrogen technologies.
ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL: Aberdeen City Council (ACC) – United Kingdom: Municipality, end user with experience in hydrogen applications.
CIEMAT: Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT) – Spain: Public research body under the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness focused on energy and environmental issues.
CIDAUT: Foundation for Transport and Energy Research and Development (CIDAUT) – Spain: non-profit foundation for boosting the competitiveness and industrial development of companies in the transport, energy and industry sectors.
RCVT: Razvojni Center za Vodikove Tehnologije (RCVT) – Slovenia: Founded by five companies and two research institutes to boost research, development and applicable projects in the field of hydrogen and fuel cells.
NORSTAT: NORSTAT Services GmbH (NORSTAT) – Germany: Leading fieldwork agency in Europe, with many years of experience with all methods of survey research.
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS: Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds – United Kingdom: SRI integrates natural and social science in interdisciplinary environmental research.
UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND: University of Sunderland (SUNDERLAND) – United Kingdom: Higher Education Institution that has been involved in a number of regionally and European funded projects to develop hydrogen technologies.
IPLUSF: IPLUSF España – Spain: Company specialized in strategic and business assessment for European companies in their R&D, innovation and environmental processes with experience in consultancy projects related to hydrogen and fuel cells.
OBJECTIVES:
The issue of how the public and potential users perceive and respond to hydrogen technologies has been the objective of past research. Two main findings of this research have been, first, that public attitudes towards hydrogen technology vary across populations and time, influenced by a complex set of factors; and second, that gathering reliable data on the public attitudes towards hydrogen technologies requires careful conceptual and methodological considerations.
In general terms, current research on the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies faces three major challenges:
• Regarding the acceptance by the general public and future customers
• Regarding the levels of awareness and acceptance of the key stakeholders
• How to properly understand the acceptance process
Hydrogen technologies are being tested and implemented in a number of demonstration projects across European cities and regions. The identification and understanding of the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies may help officials, planners, developers and the public identify and address potential conflicts of interest and misunderstandings that may accompany development. Understanding and integrating the public needs and concerns with the management of hydrogen projects could be crucial for the successful development of hydrogen technologies.
The transition phase of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies is expected to happen within the next decade. As many European countries and companies face severe economic and social challenges, it will be difficult to allocate public funding to the introduction of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies on a broad-scale to the market, expecting higher cost and less comfortable infrastructure or lower reliability (childhood diseases) for early adopters.
Changing a running system, and switching to a new technology when competitive and reliable alternatives are in place, will require more than “just” environmental benefit and energy efficiency – it requires a true added-value to the early adopters (region and/or organization) or high pressures on the current system (e.g. increases in oil prices).
The overall purpose of HYACINTH project is to gain a deeper understanding of the social acceptance of hydrogen technologies across Europe by combining specific qualitative and quantitative methods and samples of European citizens and stakeholders. HYACINTH aims to:
• Identify and understand awareness and acceptance of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies and perceived potential benefits (added value) in the general public and at selected stakeholders, expected to be relevant to the implementation of FCH projects and activities in the transition phase (industry supplier, industry and private customer, administration and politics, interest groups and media),
• Identify the main drivers of social awareness and acceptance of FCH technologies in order to provide recommendations on how and what to best communicate and engage general public and stakeholders involved in regional hydrogen energy and FCH projects and activities,
• Support stakeholders (industry, project managers, policy makers...) by providing a social acceptance research toolbox, enabling a regional understanding of the acceptance process and providing tools to manage expectations to keep or increase acceptance at selected stakeholder groups and the general public.
Public awareness: Public awareness of technological, scientific and innovation issues is a function of many factors, including exposure to ideas or artefacts, the degree of attention that people pay to these and their salience. If something is of little interest or incomprehensible to people, it is less likely to be remembered, reflected upon or evaluated. The same applies if an object has no real physical presence for people, which is of course the case with technologies that are new. One of the benefits of awareness-related opinion survey work is that, repeated on a longitudinal basis, it can track awareness as it changes over time. HYACINTH lays the ground for such opinion tracking in relation to hydrogen fuel cells, should repeat studies take place.
Social acceptance: The social acceptance of new products, applications, and technologies is a function of the attitudes, behaviours, opinions and activities resulting from the interactions between stakeholders, the general public or lay society as a whole and the proposed technologies. Social acceptance of a technology is thus the result of a complex relationship between technology and society.
Deep social research on hydrogen acceptance would provide insight into the state of public and stakeholder acceptance (including socio-political and market actors), and about relevant factors affecting those levels of awareness and acceptance.
This would result in useful information to understand better how society and stakeholders respond to innovative technologies and applications. Therefore, HYACINTH is focused on understanding the influencing factors in the acceptance process (taking into account a certain technology, project or system specification). This is focused on particular on the specific transition phase of market implementation, between the demonstration and market phases.
The aim of the HYACINTH project is to provide evidence-based knowledge that helps to optimize the societal management of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in the transition phase.
The following questions are among those to be considered when seeking to understand acceptance processes and their implications in the transition phase of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies:
1. How do the public and stakeholders view hydrogen energy and FCH technologies? What are their levels of awareness, attitudes and beliefs?
2. Who are the publics and stakeholders involved? How do awareness, attitudes and beliefs vary across populations in different countries?
3. What are the implications of the above for planning the scale-up of hydrogen energy and FCH technologies?
4. What needs to be done when? At what points in time is social acceptance critical?
Project Results:
The objective of HYACINTH project is to achieve a greater understanding of the social acceptance of FCH technologies and applications at European level, to develop a tool to facilitate the product development and market introduction being better aimed to the target audience, giving better response to the expectations and deducted the risks or barriers to their acceptance.
Work packages (figure 1: chart flow annex 2)
– WP1 ” Project management” has been running through the whole life of the project and it is where all coordination and management activities has been done: meetings, reporting, deliverables, day to day work. The webpage design and development is here included.
The objective of this WP was to ensure reaching the objectives planned in HYACINTH project, in good quality within budget and schedule’s time limits. For this reason, this WP has ensured:
- Fluid communication flow
- Adequate planning and follow-up of the project
- The quality of field and experimental work and of written material
- Efficient decision-making procedures.
- Fulfilment of contractual obligations of the project in relation to reporting and financial matters and other issues that may arise
- Reliable financial control.
The following tasks has been developed:
Task 1.1. Day to Day work management: This task has included the “day to day work” to reach the objectives of Hyacinth project during all period of implementation of the project. Apart from the Kick off Meeting (KoM) held at the beginning of the project, it has been held several progress meetings each six month to ensure the expected results. The aim of these meetings has been to monitor the results according DOW, milestones and deliverables.
Task 1.2. Financial Management: Each partner has been responsible for the financial control in his particular entity.
Task 1.3. Work Package Technical Management. This task has included all activities related to the management of technological aspects and issues. Each WP leader has been responsible for the correct technical management of his WP. During the meetings, and when has been required by the coordinator or Technical Committee, the person in charge of each WP has reported about the situation of his WP.
Task 1.4. Communication Between Partners: To ensure a good internal and external communication, several tools (e-mail, meetings, teleconferences, reports, webpage) has been developed and used. For the communication between partners, the webpage private area was developed (http://hyacinthproject.eu/) with a private part as repository of documentation and to exchange information between partners.
Task 1.5. Quality and risk management: It has been established a Quality and Risk Management Plan (RMP) taking into account the critical path of the project, their probability and the contingency actions.
In addition to avoid conflicts a project structure comprised by Steering Committee, Technical Committee and Regional Committee was established and approved as well.
The technical WPs (WP2 to WP6) have been developed in a sequential way as follows:
– WP2 “Context analysis”, has been aimed to gather information that could be useful for the rest of the WP. WP2 has been divided in different tasks: the first one about projects and policies in Europe that could affect and be useful for the analysis and interpretation of the results (WP5) and to feed the toolbox (WP6); the second task, gathering the information of stakeholders that are going to be contacted to carry out the interviews and the questionnaires (WP4); and the third one focused on looking for all the past projects, studies or activities related with public awareness and acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies that could affect the methodological design of the study (WP3).
Task 2.1. Identification of European existing hydrogen projects: The objective of this task has been to select the projects that could be used as first search for stakeholders to be asked to answer the interviews and the questionnaires and to be targeted for dissemination. The main results are a list of demonstration projects across Europe, with partners belonging to one of the five selected countries for the stakeholders study. There are European funded projects and national funded ones.
An analysis has been made for all the projects in order to establish relations between projects and countries and also with stakeholders that participate in these projects, to identify and select the most interesting projects to be contacted in the WP4 Data collection. The following information of the studied projects has been gathered: countries with partners in the project, project acronym, type of project, type of application, co-funding body (if any), project cost and volume of funding obtained, partners involved and its country, coordinator, project status, conclusion date, duration. A total of 139 European and 33 national projects have been studied under this task and appear in Deliverable 2.1 European Projects and Policies alongside with the information obtained for the next task of hydrogen policy around Europe which aimed to support the methodological design of WP3.
The main conclusion of the identification and analysis of projects is that there is a clear relationship between the level of involvement of Governments and Administrations in the development of the hydrogen economy and the type and number of European projects in which each country participates, as countries with specific plans for the development of these technologies, such as Germany, UK or France, have a high level of participation in European demonstration projects.
Task 2.2 Collection of hydrogen policy around Europe: This task focused on policy and the associated mechanisms mainly at a national level that could influence awareness and acceptance directly or with indirect measures. Data has been gathered at a European level and also for the seven selected countries targeted by the public survey: Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom. As commented previously, this part, alongside the European projects task is shown in the D2.1. This part of the deliverable has been used in WP5 to see if there are some relation between the results of the studies and the level of support.
The main conclusions of the deliverable D2.1. are that the data gathered from policies and mechanisms to support FCH technologies and its implementation confirm with some minor deviations the initial selection of countries made:
▪ Advanced Hydrogen Support: Germany, United Kingdom and Norway
▪ Medium Hydrogen Support: Belgium, France and Spain
▪ Low Hydrogen Support: Slovenia
With Germany the most supporting country and followed by United Kingdom and Norway with a clear high support followed closely by France which could be also considered there; Belgium and Spain as medium support countries, but with Spain lower than Belgium; and finally Slovenia with a low support.
Only one country, Germany, has developed a complete framework to support FCH technologies and its implementation. Nevertheless, there are some public-private initiatives at a national level in the high supporting countries for the refuelling infrastructure deployment for transport applications. Each country has its own mechanisms, plans and strategies and in most cases the support is technologically neutral between many alternatives like alternative fuels or cogeneration devices that include hydrogen but does not favour it. The support and the applications already in contact with the general public are mainly due to demonstration projects.
Task 2.3 Identification of hydrogen stakeholders: This task has been aimed at searching possible and suitable stakeholders for the data collection (personal interviews and online specific survey for stakeholders) and for the dissemination of the results of the project in the five European countries where the stakeholders' study is going to be made: France, Germany, Spain, Slovenia and United Kingdom.
The study for the stakeholders’ part has been made only in five countries due to the difficulty to search, select the adequate stakeholders and, specially, to contact them in countries without direct representation of project partners. A first selection of stakeholders was made for the selected countries to carry out the interviews. This selection had to be extended to get enough positive contacts for both the interviews and the on-line questionnaires and a more complete list has been obtained for every country.
The information obtained has been used to elaborate a smaller list for the personal interviews that were going to be completed in WP4 As outlined below these interviews are usually attached to specific demonstration projects. The information obtained has feed also WP4 in the stakeholder’s part (online survey) and WP7 in the dissemination activities.
The search for stakeholders has been made in each country by the local partners and reported through the Regional Committee. This required each country to compile a list of stakeholders that would create a pool of potential interviewees and respondents. The lists were compiled and presented in D2.2 List of Stakeholders.
As conclusions of this task, are that there is no data available that describes the hydrogen community, thus it is not possible to identify a representative sample of the community or more precisely to evaluate in how far the lists produced are representative. Therefore, a selection criterion was decided and a validation of the lists through discussions with members of the hydrogen community was made through the interviews asking for other stakeholders.
The stakeholders were divided in three main groups, identifying if they participated in some relevant demonstration project or not. These groups are:
▪ Government Agencies and Local Authorities.
▪ Industry and Research Bodies: this group were made up of representatives of the hydrogen industry associations or research bodies working within this field.
▪ Industrial Partners: this group is made up of those stakeholders who developed, implemented or operated hydrogen technologies.
Over 800 stakeholders have been found in five countries and, with the exception of Slovenia which is a small country with low levels of hydrogen support all countries have gathered lists with high numbers of stakeholders, and many of them were felt to be important players in the hydrogen field and had been key movers in various hydrogen and fuel cell projects.
Task 2.4 Methodological experiences to measure social acceptance in the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells field: theoretical framework: This task aimed at identifying methods and surveys of previous research on social acceptance, general public awareness and attitudes towards the use of the hydrogen and FCH technologies. It also aimed at describing the current level of knowledge and to identify gaps in the literature which need to be closed in the project.
For this purpose, a review about theories used previously to know the social acceptance about this kind of technologies has been carried out, and has been presented as Deliverable 2.3. Report on methodologies and factors. The report is based on a review of academic and grey literatures. Five areas are covered in the report regarding the research on public and stakeholder acceptance of FCH technologies:
▪ The concept of social acceptance of FCH technologies
▪ Studied populations and stakeholder groups. Types of populations and samples studied
▪ Socio-psychological dimensions studied in the literature (e.g. awareness, knowledge, familiarity, global attitude, emotions, acceptance and support, etc.)
▪ Hydrogen and fuel cell applications under study. Technological objects under study (e.g. hydrogen vehicles, hydrogen infrastructures).
▪ Methodological approaches. Social research methods and specific data collection tools implemented in the reviewed studies.
The report is divided in two main chapters, one on the public and the other one on stakeholders’ awareness and acceptance for hydrogen technologies.
The main conclusions drawn from the review are:
▪ The majority of studies have focused on specific countries or regions. Very few cross-country studies systematically comparing public attitudes to FCH applications have been found.
▪ The majority of studies have focused on transport applications. Very few studies have focused on FCH stationary residential applications.
▪ In general, studies tend to show that low levels of knowledge of - and interest in - hydrogen among the public nonetheless coexist with relatively high levels of acceptance.
▪ Although no systematic comparisons have been found regarding the acceptance of specific applications, public attitudes towards FCH technologies might vary depending on the type of application considered or even the way hydrogen is produced.
And the final remark from D2.3 is that considerable degree of knowledge of hydrogen acceptance in Europe has been accumulated over the last two decades.
– WP3 “Methodological design”. This WP, based on the work carried out in WP2, has focused on the specification of the research design (including the specification of the general strategy, the design of the sample and the design of the data collection instruments) of two studies to assess public and stakeholder acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in Europe. One of the main outcomes of this WP has been the design of the questionnaires to be implemented in the Data Collection (WP4). Instructions and protocols have been developed in this WP too, to be used also in the WP4.
Task 3.1 Development of a common research approach: The main objective in this task was to develop the basic elements of the research design. It built on the outcomes derived in WP2. Two studies were designed in this task:
▪ Study 1. Public awareness and acceptance of FCH technologies. From a methodological point of view, this study is based on a cross-sectional questionnaire survey with members of the public in seven EU countries. The survey used a self-reported questionnaire developed specifically for the objectives of the project to measure public attitudes towards FCH technologies and partially based on the technology acceptance model. It focused on two specific applications as they are the most advanced and therefore most likely to create a market in the nearer future: i) Fuel cell stationary applications for heating and electricity; ii) Fuel cell transport applications and related infrastructures.
▪ Study 2. Stakeholder acceptance, expectations and views of FCH technologies. This study focuses on the collection of qualitative (semi-structured interviews) and quantitative data (via questionnaires) with members of the stakeholders groups in five EU countries. Specifically, this study consists of a survey to be implemented with energy stakeholders and hydrogen experts and semi-structured interviews to be carried out with members of the stakeholder’s groups around selected hydrogen demonstration cases.
Task 3.2 Development of questionnaires (general public): Following the research design specified in D3.1 Hyacinth social hydrogen acceptance and awareness research concept, a questionnaire specifically for the general public study was developed. This questionnaire is documented in D3.2 Questionnaires to the general public and selected stakeholders and which also includes some screenshots of the online survey developed in WP4 that have been used also in that WP for the data collection from public.
The questionnaire is structured in five main sections:
a) sociodemographic data;
b) awareness, familiarity and uninformed evaluation of FCH technologies;
c) attitudes towards FCH stationary applications;
d) attitudes towards FCH vehicles;
e) other questions.
Sections c) and d) constitute the core of the questionnaire and include a number of items designed to measure awareness, familiarity, emotions, perception of benefits and costs, evaluation of consequences, attitude, acceptance and support regarding two specific applications: stationary fuel cells (micro CHP) and transport applications (fuel cell vehicles and busses) as they are the first ones to enter a mass market. As a low level of knowledged was assumed and confirmed in earlier studies, the questionnaire also included sections that provided information on the technologies under study.
(Figure 2: Design of the Questionnaire for general public annex 3)
The result of this task is a master questionnaire developed in English. In WP4 it has been implemented online and tested, and then translated into the other six languages (Flemish, French, German, Norwegian, Slovenian and Spanish) by experts, so the survey is presented in the native language of the participants.
Task 3.3 Development of questionnaires (stakeholders, quantitative): As detailed in the D3.1 and based in the work developed in the methodological design, a specific questionnaire was developed to: assess stakeholders’ attitudes and views regarding FCH technologies in general and also in two fields of applications in particular: fuel cell transport applications and related infrastructures and fuel cell stationary applications.
This questionnaire was aimed at identifying stakeholders’ expectations about the future of FCH applications, particularly the policy signals that influence the propensity of firms to invest or not to invest and the decision-making of incumbents in the area; and to identify expectations about likely market development.
Data on stakeholders’ views on FCH applications have been collected online in WP4 from five EU countries (Germany, France, Slovenia, Spain and UK) drawing on the lists of stakeholders assembled in earlier WPs.
Task 3.4 Development of questionnaires (stakeholder, qualitative): The objective of the qualitative study has been to examine stakeholders’ views on hydrogen fuel cell applications. The main goal of the study has been to get a deeper understanding of the socio-political and market acceptance of these applications.
A protocol for semi-structured interviews with members of various stakeholders groups around hydrogen and fuel cell projects (past or ongoing hydrogen pilot or demonstration projects) in five EU countries (France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and UK) was designed in this task.
The questionnaire for the qualitative interviews was designed to focus on questions regarding expectations and experiences with the technologies and the operation of hydrogen energy and FCH systems. The interviews have been held face-to-face where possible or by phone and lasted about 30-45 minutes per stakeholder. The questions have addressed technological as well as regional aspects, and also left time for individual focus.
The result of this task is an interview protocol . The interview guide as well as the questionnaire has been developed in English and then it has been translated into German, French, Spanish and Slovenian. Interviews (WP4) were carried out in each country by a local researcher from the project team.
– WP4 “Data collection”, with three parts: personal interviews with stakeholders, on-line questionnaires for selected stakeholders (both study 2) and a general public survey (study 1). The obtained information has been collected and processed to be used in the data analysis and interpretation (WP5) in two parts: the online questionnaires (stakeholders) and online surveys (general public) on one side and the stakeholder interviews on another.
Task 4.1 Development of the online questionnaires: The objective of this task has been to implement the online questionnaires both for the general public survey and for the stakeholders’ quantitative part, from the master questionnaires developed in WP3 in English where the order of the questions was defined and pictures to support the understanding of the subject were chosen, etc.
In order to make the interviews as interesting and enjoyable for the participants as possible, different question types and media material was chosen and both, the English also versions of the public and the stakeholder questionnaire were scripted. Once all language versions were finalized the different language versions were implemented, scripted and tested by the partners.
For the general public survey, the questionnaire for the public awareness study was translated into German, Spanish, Norwegian, Slovenian, French and Flemish and content checks were conducted by the partners to ensure that all translations and wordings are correct and the questions are easily understandable for the public.
The stakeholder quantitative questionnaire was translated by the different partners of the consortium into German, Spanish, Slovenian and French. Language and content checks were conducted by the partners to ensure that all translations and wordings are correct.
The result of this task were the implemented questionnaires in the native languages and prepared to be launched to collect the information, which was done in the next task.
Task 4.2 Quantitative data collection: The aim of this task has been the data collection from the general public and the stakeholders’ quantitative part, which was carried out through on-line tools.
The public awareness has been done in seven countries via online access panels in the UK, Germany, Norway, Spain, France, Slovenia and Belgium. In each of these countries more than 1,000 surveys have been conducted.
(Figure 3: Distribution of the sample per country studied in general public; annex 4)
The proceeding was as follows: invitations to take part in the survey were sent out automatically through the access panel system to panellists recruited by Norstat. The first batch of invitations were sent out in order to receive about 5% of the overall sample per country (soft launch). The responses of those were checked to make sure that everything works from a technical point of view and that participants do not repeatedly quit at a certain point during the interview. Once the data of the soft launch were checked more invites were sent out. By the end of April 2016 all data were collected and cleaned. Cleaning the data means selecting cheaters (for example straight-liners, participants who only needed less than half of the time suggested) and replacing the cheaters in order to get the full 1,000 interviews per country. The compiled data were sent out to the consortium in order to start the analysis.
The stakeholder study was done in five countries: UK, Germany, France, Spain and Slovenia. The invites for the stakeholders to take part in the survey were sent out via email with a country specific link to the questionnaire. The invites were sent out by the different members of the consortium from the respective country. The decision was made that sending out from an email account from a person working in the sector in the relevant country would be better than from an online access panel email system, which the stakeholders will not recognize. All data were collected from March to June 2016.
(Table 1: Contacted stakeholders and sample sizes in each country; annex 5)
Task 4.3 Qualitative data collection: The objective of this task has been to perform the interviews designed in WP3, and to thereby collect qualitative data. The main target group were representatives from ongoing and former hydrogen demonstration projects (transport and stationary applications). From the initial lists of stakeholders and projects developed in WP2 a selection for each country was made by local partners in discussion with the project consortium. These initial lists were collected through personal contacts, contacting national hydrogen platforms, researching the internet and project platforms and by using the snowball system (asking contacted stakeholders for further contacts).
An interview guideline providing instructions to the interviewer as well as interview questions was developed in WP3 and is documented in D3.2. Further templates, e.g. exemplary emails to contact potential interview partners were provided for the partners in the different countries who were responsible for the interviews in order to follow a standardised procedure.
Interviews were conducted by the partners in each country (France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain and UK). Interviews were carried out between 13th November 2015 and 8th June 2016. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone; some of them face-to-face. The interviews lasted between 15 and 90 minutes; most of them around 30 minutes. Overall 145 interviews were collected (between 11 and 39 interviews per country), most of them were audio-recorded and interview summaries were created either from the audio recording or extensive notes taken during the interview. A template for the summaries was also provided to document them in a standardised way.
(Figure 4: HYACINTH project details annex 6)
– WP5 “Data analysis and interpretation”. This WP was aimed at examining and reporting the data collected in WP4 regarding the public awareness and acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in Europe. The results of this WP have been reported in D5.2 Integrated Report on general findings on public acceptance and D5.1. Report on results of the stakeholder survey. The information obtained has been used for information treated in the toolbox (WP6).
Task 5.1 Descriptive analysis of survey data (general public) at the country level :The aim of this task has been to carry out a descriptive analysis of the survey data generated for each country. Descriptive statistics have been used for displaying the basic features of the variables in the study, linked to awareness and acceptance. Simple summaries, together with simple graphics analysis have been provided.
The results of this task have been the first step for the analysis of overall results. The data have been analysed using SPSS 19 software (SPSS, Chicago, Illinois, United States) and Excel software (Microsoft, Redmond, Washington, United States). Descriptive analyses of the relevant variables have been performed for all the countries.
Task 5.2 Comparative analysis of survey data: A report has been provided on similarities and differences across countries in Europe by means of the appropriate statistical procedure (crosstabs, comparison of means, correlations...). Contingency table analyses have been performed to study the relationship between responses on dependent variables and other independent variables such as age, gender, geographic region and other demographic variables. Differences in the frequencies of different survey responses were tested for significance by using a χ2 test of proportions and Anova for means, and p values below 0.01 were considered statistically significant. In addition, it has been carried out an analysis related to the classification of countries regarding its level of policy support.
• Advanced Hydrogen Support: Germany, United Kingdom and Norway
• Medium Hydrogen Support: Belgium, France and Spain
• Low Hydrogen Support: Slovenia
Task 5.3: Multivariate analysis of integrated survey data: Multiple regression and path analyses have been conducted to investigate associations among various dependent and independent variables, with difference tests used to make cross-country comparisons. This has allowed examining the effects on public attitudes of potential explanatory variables as familiarity, level of hydrogen implementation, type of hydrogen technology, information provided and other personal, psychological, social and contextual variables
Task 5.4. Analysis of stakeholder survey: Statistical analysis with SPSS software has been carried out at three levels: descriptive analysis to understand variable distribution in each national sample, bivariate and multivariate analysis, as well as transnational analysis to compare involved countries. In addition, findings were also discussed in the light the classification of countries depending on policies of support.
Task 5.5: Thematic analysis of stakeholder’s interviews: A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts has been carried out for each country. In this sense, a coding protocol has been developed for do analysis among the countries.
Furthermore, it is important to remark that a video has been recorded related to the opinions ans impressions of Stakeholders after driving a FCEV at WHEC 2016 congress (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHyXGWxCzg)
For Public Acceptance Study, the main results have been:
▪ Less than half of the population in the seven countries is aware of the existence of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in the context of energy production.
▪ Public awareness is significantly lower for residential applications and higher for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
▪ The level of familiarity with both applications is low (less than 10% of respondents consider themselves familiar)
▪ The majority of the population in the seven studied countries have a positive initial attitude towards FCH technologies. The label associated to hydrogen and fuel cells seems to invoke positive feelings and thoughts among respondents.
▪ After processing relevant information, respondents in the seven countries are likely to accept and support the adoption of residential fuel cells and FCEVs.
▪ Overall, the seven studied populations were similar in their attitudes towards FCH technologies. However, the results point to relevant differences in awareness and acceptance of FCH applications and specific investment intentions are low in the near future.
For Stakeholders Acceptance Study, the main results have been:
▪ No strong signals that FCH technologies are yet breaking out of their niches into the mainstream ‘regimes’ of fuel supply and provision of mobility and heat and power.
▪ Variation across countries: associated with differing levels of government investment in R&D programmes (Germany and Spain being at opposite poles).
▪ R&D stakeholders have a strong positive appraisal of FCH technologies, but with limitations:
▪ cost and limited regulatory, political and commercial support;
▪ competition from other technologies, especially electric vehicles in the mobility sector and inter-related obstacles.
▪ Stakeholders view on market development: medium to long term rather than near term.
▪ FCH technologies view: realistic niche potential in the shorter term
▪ uninterruptible power, auxiliary power and high power demand such as fork lifts and heavy goods vehicles.
▪ Lack of public support is not to be expected to become a major challenge if the framework conditions for the technologies develop in a supportive way.
The results of WP5 have been documented in the following deliverables:
• D5.1 Report on results of the stakeholder survey: Report on results of the qualitative and quantitative stakeholder survey
• D5.2 Integrated Report on general findings on public acceptance.
On the other hand, summaries of both reports have been developed and translated to five languages and published in HYACINTH website (http://hyacinthproject.eu/):
• HYACINTH Project – Findings on stakeholders’ views on the social acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell technologies.
• HYACINTH Project. Findings on public acceptance.
• Overview and policy implications.
– WP6 “Development of management toolbox”aimed at presenting the final results of the project: a social awareness report and a toolbox, or specific software database to show a response for the criteria that would be selected like the perceived relative advantage of the technology, the perceived compatibility with existing values and practices, the perceived simplicity and ease of use, the “trialability” and observable results. The toolbox should help stakeholders to better communicate or target their products or services.
Task 6.1: Definition of contents, structural concept: This toolbox has been developed to help promoters and decision makers to integrate issues related to social acceptance into their developments. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a technique used to understand:
• what is important to their customers,
• how well they are addressing those issues in order to adjust their designs/services accordingly and
• ensure that these vital issues are not lost during the product/service development process.
The tool box enables users to filter the data that they interrogate via a number of filtering questions designed to narrow the search such as the age group of the respondents, their country and region of residence, the type of application the user is interested in, etc. the toolbox then selects the data that matches these filters and presents the findings to the user as a report that may be downloaded in pdf format.
(Figure 5: The QFD model annex 7)
Thus, the toolbox offers a set of information facilitating decisions on promotion activities, market preparation, and effective policy support mechanisms, all of it particularized for a given European region and a certain technology.
Task 6.2: Evaluation of interview results: The data gathered in WP4 & WP5 have been incorporated into the Level of Awareness and Acceptance 1st stage model. This is the core in the tool box (SAMT). The model has been used to provide statistical quantitative data for evaluation purposes. The evaluation will use the model & tool box to ascertain key bottleneck, barriers & challengers linked to social awareness.
The public and stakeholder quantitative research both begin with some demographic questions regarding the respondent. Following this the data collected falls into three broad categories:
1. Relating to stationary applications.
2. Relating to transport applications.
3. Knowledge and Experience.
4. Trust.
5. Positive and Negative Affects.
6. Perceived consequences.
7. Attitude.
8. Initial acceptance.
9. Acceptance.
The qualitative research data have been also mapped onto this model in order to match responses from interviewees to the themes around which the quantitative data has been arranged. Thus, the tool can take advantage of several search filters, for example to narrow down the search using the demographic data, to only that which is applicable to the technology application under review.
(Figure 6: SAMT general operation. Annex 8)
The structure of the SAMT is explained in the deliverable D6.1. SAMT (Tool Box) database and basic Structure.
Task 6.3: Development of methodologies: Utilizing the first results the 1st stage model has been tested and evaluated. From this, the model has been optimized for general use and for different core areas: mobile and stationary applications. For the optimization of the toolbox, some experimental toolbox sessions have been carried out, which have provided enough information to improve the model.
The sessions for the experimental toolbox held have been described in the deliverable D6.3. Optimized and tested SAMT. The report summarizes the feedback received by the development team of the SAMT from pilot studies carried out within an existing project and a sample of the workshops carried out to demonstrate the SAMT and provide stakeholders with the opportunity to use the toolbox for themselves.
In general, the toolbox was well received with stakeholders feeling confident that it raised issues that they had not thought of and provided advice to assist them in overcoming these issues. The toolbox proved simple to use and provided clear advice and guidance to the user.
Task 6.4: Preparation of tool box / handbook: The optimized model has been utilized to analysis core data for the tool box. It has been developed a supporting hand book for SAMT, D 6.4. Tool Box Handbook and Best Practice Case Study.
The deliverable provides a handbook or user guide to the operation of the SAMT. It is designed to guide developers step by step through operation of the SAMT and provide helpful insights into the information provided as a result of a particular set of queries. The toolbox links to and extracts from a series of best practice case studies the provide background and context to the responses of those who have contributed their opinions and knowledge to the toolbox.
Thus, the toolbox offers a set of information facilitating decisions on promotion activities, market preparation, and effective policy support mechanisms, all of it particularized for a given European country and a certain technology.
Task 6.5: Design and implementation: The results of Task 6.4 have been used to develop a fully functional tool box ( https://hyacinth.sunderland.ac.uk/). The results obtained from the toolbox have been compared to the qualitative and quantitative research studies carried out in WP4 and WP5 and the tool box has been found to function satisfactorily.
The deliverable, D6.2. Level of Awareness and Acceptance model for real time data evaluation of the survey results, presents a review of methods for predicting acceptance of FCH technologies based on social acceptance models and surveys. It focuses mostly on the area of FCH technologies which are relatively new in general domestic use and therefore unknown from social acceptance aspect.
Finally, the deliverable D6.5. Social Awareness report covering WP3, WP4 & WP6 results, reviews this research and investigates differences between stakeholders and the general public in seven and five EU states. It is focused on the review the performance of the SAMT when highlighting these differences and demonstrates its validity as a development tool.
The report concludes with a set of recommendations for policy makers and FCH developers that should increase progress towards mass market acceptance for FCH technologies and improve public engagement.
– WP7 “Dissemination”, as well as the WP1, has been running the entire life of the project. The aim of the WP is to engage stakeholders in the project and in the use and spreading of the results of the project (the two studies and the toolbox).
Task 7.1 Dissemination tools: The deliverable D7.1. Dissemination Plan established the strategy to be followed in the project to engage stakeholders interested in FCH technologies and in the results of the project (studies and the toolbox). It has been established as dissemination tools such as brochure, leaflets, posters, press release, academic papers that have been used for different target groups and project outputs.
Task 7.2. Engagement ok key stakeholders and preparation of background material: The objective of this task has been to engage stakeholders by different means of communication, events and activities during the project. In addition, expand the dissemination database and developed more tools for communication.
In a first stage, it was identified and planned key tools for communication (brochures, posters, academic papers, newsletters, website, social networks....) and events described in deliverables D7.1. and D7.3. Calendar of Events. In addition, the project has been in contact with international and national associations and others related to hydrogen technologies, in order to expand the database of stakeholders.
By the events mentioned before a great quantity of stakeholders has been contacted for providing information about the overall objective, specific objectives of the project, deliverables, toolbox and other results. In this sense, it has been prepared the material for dissemination such as: HYACINTH-General Brochure, Results from the general public opinion poll, Findings on stakeholders’ views and poster presented in the conference Energy Research in the Social Science , poster presented in the German Conference for Transport Psychology at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Bergisch Gladbach and poster presented in World Hydrogen Energy Conference 2016 (WHEC 2016).
Furthermore, all stakeholders recruited during the project and in the events (conferences, congress, workshops...) were included in the database for digital mailing. On the other hand, it has been also included in this database the representatives of associations who were contacted by the consortium and showed interest in knowing the results of HYACINTH project.
Task 7.3. Dissemination of key results: The aim of this task has been to make presentations at key FC&H2 events in different parts of Europe organised to engage and inform key FC and H2 stakeholders and project coordinators. After that, in the second period of the project and once the results of the interviews and toolbox have been obtained, the objective and results have been disseminated until the end the project. In this sense, it has been made communications of the HYACINTH results in different conferences such as: WHEC 2016, ECOS 2016, SENIX 2016, Programme Review Days 2016, EERA 2016, EFCW 2016, EEVC 2016, Energy for society 2016...etc.
Task 7.4. Publishing of project results and final report: The objective of this task has been to held workshops with key stakeholders to present the project findings and the management toolkit. The partners have managed workshops of HYACINTH in UK, France, Slovenia, Germany and Spain. The results of these workshops are explained in deliverable D7.4. Report of workshops held.
The HYACINTH project is aware of the need to disseminate and communicate the results obtained, this work has been carried out with a double purpose. On the one hand, to show to the main drivers of FCH technologies the results obtained within the project, and on the other hand, to obtain feedback of their opinion on them, so that the project can improve the results, as well as improving the developed SAMT.
A workshop has been held in each of the countries where a project participant belongs, so that information can be presented to all stakeholders at least in each of the study countries.
In each of the workshops, once the general objective of the project has been showed, it has been explained the results of D 5.2. and D.5.1 countries involved, number of participants, methodology followed and results obtained, as well as the operation of the SAMT.
After then, it has been given questionnaires where the attendees were asked about the project and its results, as well as their interest. Finally, they were asked about their opinion on measures that should be proposed to increase the use of hydrogen technologies and fuel cells.
Finally, the deliverable D 7.5. Final dissemination report, includes all the dissemination activities developed throughout HYACINTH project life. This document shows the achieved results related the objectives originally proposed in the Deliverable 7.1. With more than 20 contributions to different relevant conferences and seminars across Europe and a relevant role on Social Networks, the HYACINTH project has been successful in dissemination to the general audience and the external and internal stakeholders the results of the stakeholder survey and general finding on public acceptance of hydrogen and fuel cells technologies.
Potential Impact:
The two studies carried out in the framework of the project will be of great utility to the industry, stakeholders and policy makers for the promotion of the use of hydrogen technologies. It is considered that having identified the knowledge and acceptance of the technologies in the different countries and regions, as well as the needs of future users and customers, will allow to promote the market and demand of applications based on hydrogen and fuel cells.
Another important result of the project to consider is the development of the SAMT toolbox, Social Acceptance Management Toolbox, with data obtained from both studies, which will be a very useful tool that will allow companies or policy makers to identify in a Country and Region specific their familiarity with the applications, needs, their interests and requirements. Provide practical advice to developers and/or sponsors of FCH technologies that they now intend to progress from a completed demonstration project or phase to full market acceptance and wide public adoption. https://hyacinth.sunderland.ac.uk/
List of Websites:
Website: http://hyacinthproject.eu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HYACINTHPROJECT
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHyXGWxCzg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hyacinthproject
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/start/join?session_redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fgroups%2F7055586&trk=login_reg_redirect