The company Icelandic New Energy (INE) was established in 1999, which is a combination of key players drawn from business fund, energy company, research institutes, academic and the government. It aims to research and develop new energy. From March 2001 to autumn of 2005, Icelandic New Energy has managed the Ecological City Transport System project (ECTOS). It is not only an essential part of CUTE, also has been the first real-scale demonstration project in Iceland to use hydrogen as a fuel. During the ECTOS project, total 3 FCB drove more than 65,000km during the first 18 months. This amounts to saving 95 tons of CO2 emission, plus other polluting gases.

    INE participated as a subcontractor within the HySociety project, which came to an end in December of 2004 (www.hysociety.net). HySociety was aimed at analysis hydrogen projects and initiatives undertaken throughout Europe, as well as the possible social, technical or economic barriers to implementing hydrogen as an energy carrier throughout Europe. The project is considered to have a major input into the hydrogen roadmap for Europe. INE started a 15-month project, new hydrogen ship in February of 2004. Taking fuel cells and hydrogen abroad a ship will demonstration a fairly new technology in a completely new and somewhat difficult environment. As a result, the aim of this project is to identify the infrastructure for maritime fuels.

    Iceland plans for the future include the application of hydrogen as a fuel for passenger cars, as well as for Iceland’s fishing fleet. Iceland is becoming a center for research and international discourse on the use of hydrogen fuel, a living laboratory for an experiment that could have global implications. The renewable material available in Iceland is water and power from geothermal and hydropower source. A new energy era may start if energy exploitation from deep drilling or wind power plants becomes successful. Iceland’s goal is to become the first ecological country taking conversion from fossil fuels to hydrogen by 2050.