Yesterday, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that $41.9 million from President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used for fuel cell market growth.  Thirteen projects have been funded, and industry participants will cost share about $72.4 million.  Nearly 1,000 fuel cell systems will be deployed with this funding, including key early market emergency backup power and materials handling applications.  Also funded are projects involving auxiliary power units for vehicles, electronic power packs, and stationary fuel cells for combined heat and power in residential and commercial markets. 

According to the DOE, the funding is intended to “accelerate the commercialization and deployment of fuel cells and will create jobs in fuel cell manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and support services….The increase in manufacturing volume in key early markets will also bring costs down and encourage the growth of a domestic supplier base.”

Latham, NY based company Plug Power was able to take advantage of this funding right away.   They announced they have received over $6 M in awards from the DOE funding for their market transformation programs as well as material handling, residential and stationary power applications. Through these projects, Plug has been able to deploy over 300 of their GenDrive units into the field. 

As part of the $6 M in awards, the DOE will also fund a three-year project to verify the durability and commercial readiness of Plug Power’s combined heat and power GenSys product, designed for residential and light commercial applications.  

We hope to see more news like this soon - the DOE investments truly facilitate expansion and growth within the industry. 

Recently, California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols asked Energy Secretary Chu for his “continued support for the development and early commercial deployment of fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen infrastructure as part of a comprehensive strategy to address our shared climate and energy goals.”

“Now more than ever we need the support of the federal government, and specifically the DOE, to take hydrogen fuel cell vehicles the next step closer to commercialization,” Nichols wrote.

In a letter obtained by the Fuel Cell Insider this week, Nichols said “CARB believes ZEV technology, either fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs) or more likely both, will be required to reach [California's] 2050 GHG [reduction] goals. Because of the long time scales inherent to deploying new vehicle technology, early market sales of ZEVs will need to begin before 2020 and achieve significant market share by 2030 to have a considerable impact on greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury.

“Today it is not possible to know which technologies will be the market winners but given that our global climate and future mobility are at stake, we must pursue all promising options. Fuel cell vehicles, with their potential to provide the range, high efficiency, rapid refueling, and performance consumers expect while achieving zero tailpipe emissions and dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions, are one of these options. Fuel cells are also unique in their ability to provide motive power for a wide variety of applications including material handling, scooters, ships, and locomotives.

“DOE should include hydrogen FCVs as a major component of the Technology Validation Phase 2 Program, and should continue its support of basic and applied R&D with the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Fossil Energy, and other relevant research programs,” she wrote.

California is certainly ready to forge ahead - the California Fuel Cell Partnership has released an action plan that  details a strategy for deploying hydrogen fueling stations and fuel cell vehicles in California. The plan specifies the steps needed to meet the fuel needs of 4,300 passenger vehicles and 20 fuel cell buses by 2014, and prepares for even more growth through 2017. The plan calls for 46 retail hydrogen fueling stations in six key California communities at a cost of about $180 million over four years; $60 million from industry and $120 million from government.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) recently released “A Report on Worldwide Hydrogen Bus Demonstrations, 2002-2007,” a survey of transit agencies, and their partners, about their experience in placing fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion (ICE) engine buses into daily revenue service.  The report was authored for FTA by Fuel Cells 2000’s parent organization, Breakthrough Technologies Institute, and the Center for Transportation Excellence (CTE).

The authors interviewed participants at hydrogen bus demonstration and deployment sites in North America, Europe (CUTE & HyFLEET: CUTE), Asia and Australia.  Interview participants were pleased with relative ease in deploying hydrogen buses in revenue service.  They were also impressed with the progress made in fuel cell development for vehicles, and how the lessons learned from earlier fuel cell bus trials have been successfully incorporated into the next generation of fuel cell design.  Fuel cell durability has increased from generation to generation, and participants would like to see further increases in durability so that a fuel cell bus can last 12-15 years, same as a diesel bus.  Alternatively, fuel cells could be made less expensive to allow replacement, same as is done with diesel engine rebuilds/replacements.

Limited range posed an issue for some transit agencies, requiring buses to return to the depot mid-shift for refueling.  Hybrid fuel cell buses, however, offered a much greater range, and all participants believe that hybridization will be necessary for future fuel cell and hydrogen ICE buses.  Battery technology, however, was very unreliable in the current generation of hybrid hydrogen vehicles.  Supporting components also need to be ruggedized for transit use.  Hydrogen infrastructure failures shut down some fueling stations, putting buses out of service for prolonged periods.  Some interview participants felt this was because some of the equipment had been adapted from other fueling technologies, and need to be developed specifically for hydrogen use.

To learn more about the findings, the 57-page report can be downloaded free from the FTA’s website, also linked above.

Happy April Fool’s Day everyone! Did you pull off a great prank this year? Or else, were you the victim of one? Tell us about it.

All we can say, fuel cells are no fool - April or otherwise! (We’re scheming for next year…just you wait).