The NATIONAL CENTRE FOR HYDROGEN AND FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGY EXPERIMENTATION () is a new Scientific Research & Technology Development Spanish Facility, devoted to hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The Centre has been created as a Consortium of the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation and the Castilla-La Mancha Regional Government, as part of the implementation of the Spanish Roadmap of Scientific and Technological Facilities. The Consortium was completed on December 19th 2007.and established its headquarters in Puertollano (Ciudad Real).
The Consortium was set up to manage the design, construction, equipment, and exploitation, of the . For this purpose, the Consortium will take care of the management and stimulation of the scientific, economic, technical and administrative collaboration of those entities who integrates it.

The is devoted to scientific and technology research in all the fields related to hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, being on duty of the national research and technology community and open to international access and collaboration.

The objectives of the Consortium are:

1.- To lead, in the medium-term, the national strategy on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, combining the activities of research, development and technology innovation stakeholders, in order to benefit the industrial sectors involved about the outcomes of R&D and innovation entities.

2.- To promote “lighthouse projects” to attract the attention of other companies and be the referent at a national level.

3.- To carry out the activities not covered these days by the science-technology-company national system.

In principle, the will be composed of R&D&Innovation units for:
- Hydrogen production
- Hydrogen storage
- Hydrogen distribution
- Hydrogen related technologies (purification and separation)
- Hydrogen applications (mainly on fuel cell technologies).

These units will be interconnected in order to evaluate technology alternatives both at unit level and as a component of a whole system.

The will develop projects integrated in the following technological areas:

Hydrogen Technology: troubleshooting related to the hydrogen production, storage, transport and hydrogen end-use as an energy carrier.
Fuel Cell Technology: including Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, Solid Oxid fuel cells (SOFC), Direct-methanol fuel cells (DMFC), Phosphoric Acid fuel cells (PAFC), Alkaline fuel cells (AFC), and Molten Carbonate fuel cells (MCFC). The integration of the system, balance of plant (BoP) and fuel processing activities will be also studied at the .
Facilities, prototypes and preliminary fabrication technologies: the will host test bank facilities and auxiliary facilities for demonstration, among other facilities to provide the centre with all the needed services. This Centre will also take care of the manufacture of prototypes and the upgrading of fabrication processes.