Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mark Jentsch was part of an industry delegation by the Thuringian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Science and Digital Society travelling from Thuringia to Japan. Together with Dr. Joachim Löffler, the managing director of the company Kumatec GmbH, and Bernd Hubner, the managing director of the Wasserwerke Sonneberg, he formed the delegation focus group on hydrogen technologies. This focus group is currently collaborating on the research project LocalHy that is looking at a distributed hydrogen generation system spanning the sectors electricity supply, mobility and waste water treatment. In Japan the group held talks with a range of different stakeholders involved in the development of hydrogen technologies and a hydrogen based energy economy.

On the first stop in Tokyo the team discussed with representatives from the Tokyo Metropolitain Government about the visions for a hydrogen economy in Japan planned for the Summer Olympics 2020 and presented the state of hydrogen technology development in Thuringia. Furthermore, a hydrogen fuelling station operated by the Iwatani Corporation was visited in Tokyo. In Yokohama talks were held with members of the Hydrogen Supply Chain Development Unit of the Chiyoda Corporation, also looking at a demonstration plant used for investigating the potentials of a hydrogen storage and transportation scheme. Further discussions were held at Panasonic in Osaka and Kyocera in Kyoto on the themes of fuel cells used as "enefarms" for domestic buildings in Japan and the potentials of water electrolysis from renewable energy in a future hydrogen based supply chain.

On the 2nd of October Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jentsch had the opportunity to give a short presentation on the current developments of the distributed hydrogen facility developed within the LocalHy research project in Southern Thuringia. This presentation directly followed the Thuringian Minister of Economic Affairs, Wolfgang Tiefensee's speech at the annual symposium of the Deutsch-Japanischer Wirtschaftskreis (DJW) at the Industry Club of Japan in order to give an insight into the themes of the Thurigian delegation travelling with Mr. Tiefensee. Given that the topic of the symposium was "A Hydrogen-Based Economy – Can Vision become Reality? Japanese and German Views" the event offered excellent opportunities for networking with Japanese stakeholders involved in shaping a hydrogen economy.