Dr Despoina Chatzikyriakou To obtain the 80-90% CO2 reduction by 2050, as envisaged by the EU Low Carbon Economy Roadmap, all sectors (power, transport etc) will have to implement aggressive solutions to reduce their emissions. While the power sector decarbonises gradually by investing in renewable energy the transport sector shifts towards alternative propulsion methods. Those include hybridisation, more efficient engines, biofuels and eventually electrification and hydrogen-powered vehicles. Toyota as well as other car OEMs have focused their efforts on fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen technology as they consider hydrogen to be an energy vector connecting industry, power and transport. In addition, several initiatives are taken in European and regional level to ensure the deployment of affordable and low carbon hydrogen, bridging fuel cell mobility with energy storage, industrial processes, district heating and so on. Toyota has been involved in several such projects and studies to understand the blocking points of hydrogen deployment and to collectively find solutions with industrial, policy and research partners. In this presentation, Toyota’s vision is presented and linked to European initiatives with the aim to provide some context towards the deployment of hydrogen in Greece.
Dr Despoina Chatzikyriakou is a Senior Engineer at Toyota Motor Europe’s R&D division in Brussels, Belgium. Her work interests revolve around clean energy powered vehicles deployment and clean energy production methods with a focus on low-carbon hydrogen production. She joined Toyota in 2012, following a 2-year assignment as a postdoctoral fellow at the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department of MIT in Cambridge, USA. In 2010, she obtained her PhD from Imperial College, London, UK for her work on numerical and experimental simulation of multiphase flow phenomena with a focus on phase change and heat transfer. She holds an MSc in Computational Mechanics and a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering with a specialisation in Energy, both from NTUA. Finally, she is the author of several scientific publications as well as the supervisor of several MSc/PhD thesis projects.