Toyota to Continue Providing Residential Fuel Cell Cogeneration System

26 April 2007

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) will continue providing its city-gas-powered 1 kW residential fuel cell cogeneration system to Toho Gas Co. as part of the 2007 Large-Scale Stationary Fuel Cell Demonstration Project of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

Toyota’s residential fuel cell cogeneration system combines a stationary fuel cell—jointly developed with Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. (Aisin)—and a hot water storage tank.  TMC will manufacture 28 units of the system for Toho, which plans to install them in homes in three prefectures (Aichi, Gifu and Mie) of Japan’s Tokai District to collect data for a two-year period ending in March 2010.

The stationary PEM fuel cell system unit has a rated generation efficiency of 37% (LHV) and a rated total efficiency of 87% (LHV). The hot water tank holds 150 liters at a temperature of approximately 60°C.

TMC’s continuing research and development of residential fuel cell cogeneration systems is part of its active development of technologies and marketing products that will help solve environmental problems.

Every year during the three-year period from 2005 through 2007, the New Energy Foundation (NEF), the organization carrying out METI’s Large-Scale Stationary Fuel Cell Demonstration Project, has encouraged energy suppliers to participate in its verification project. Toyota, as a fuel cell system manufacturer, provided 24 residential fuel cell cogeneration systems to energy supplier Toho, in 2006.