After the Amazon, the North Pole or the Himalayas, Mike Horn has launched his next adventure in… Isère. Except that this one is not done with a parka and skis, but with suits and white blouses. The famous explorer has just launched a start-up near Grenoble which is developing a revolutionary hydrogen fuel cell. “It all started with my participation in Paris-Dakar in 2020, he rewinds. I thought it would be better to do this race with cars that don’t use fossil fuels. Hydrogen appeared as the solution, but there were no fuel cells powerful enough for it. »
Mike Horn then approached Grenoble, the European hydrogen valley, in order to collaborate with the Innovation Laboratory for New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials (CEA-Liten). For its director, François Legalland, “it was a way of applying our progress on this energy”. Researchers are mobilized on the project and are developing a revolutionary technology capable of delivering powers never seen before with hydrogen fuel cells.
“A buoyant market with the energy crisis”
Faced with this potential, Mike Horn invested 10 million euros with Mauro Ricci (ex-boss of Akka Technologies) to found the start-up Inocel. At the end of 2022, it took up residence in the suburbs of Grenoble, under the cliffs of the Chartreuse, where the adventurer will no doubt be able to climb between two meetings. The walls of the company accommodate around thirty employees and a future production unit, from which their first hydrogen fuel cells will come out by 2024.
“They are very compact. It is a small cube of 50 cm side, describes Jules Billiet, young director general of Inocel. A single battery is enough to move a 44 ton truck, and it can be added to others to multiply the power. It is therefore intended for heavy goods vehicles, transport boats, generators. The market is buoyant with the energy crisis. »
If the image of Mike Horn has recently been tarnished following an investigation by the RTS into his military past, the company assures that this “will in no way impact its investment in Inocel and its ambition to decarbonize the planet”.