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DOE: nearly 1,200 fuel cells have been deployed through the Recovery Act

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that nearly 1,200 fuel cells were deployed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in emergency backup power units and material handling equipment, such as forklift trucks.

Companies are installing fuel cells to generate onsite primary or backup power to buildings, data centers and cell phone towers, because of their high reliability and low emissions. To date, close to 700 fuel cells have been deployed to provide backup power with $18.5 million in Recovery Act funding.

In addition, businesses are also choosing fuel cells to power materials handling equipment because of the productivity, cost and performance advantages of fuel cell lift trucks. Funded with $9.7 million under the Recovery Act, more than 500 fuel cell powered lift trucks are now operational at end-user sites, along with fueling systems, data collection and analysis, and operator training to support them.

Data collected from all of these projects is aggregated to provide relevant technology status results and fuel cell performance data without revealing proprietary information.

DOE says that the success of its fuel cell deployment and market transformation projects have led industry to plan additional purchases of more than 3,000 fuel cell powered lift trucks without any DOE funding. The majority of these fuel cell systems will be supplied through US fuel cell manufacturers.

Over the last decade, DOE has invested in research and development projects to advance key fuel cell components such as catalysts and membranes at several companies including 3M, Dupont, Gore, Johnson Matthey, and BASF. This research has helped decrease the amount of platinum used in catalysts by a factor of five and reduced the costs of transportation fuel cells by more than 80% since 2002.

DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Program has funded research and development of catalysts, membranes, and other fuel cell components, resulting in more than 300 patents and 33 commercially available technologies.

Comments

Davemart

'DOE says that the success of its fuel cell deployment and market transformation projects have led industry to plan additional purchases of more than 3,000 fuel cell powered lift trucks without any DOE funding.'

Houston, we have lift-off!

ToppaTom

We have PLANNED lift-off.

So, what did this "nearly 1,200 fuel cells" cost, each, from what the DOE spent?

"But that is not relevant" you say?

Exactly! - but it should be.

wintermane2000

Toppatom they tell you right there.. 18.5 mil for 700 backup power stacks.. thats 185k per 7 or a bit more then 20k each..

And 9.7 mil for 500 lift trucks.. thats 97k per 5 lift trucks or less then 20k per truck.

ToppaTom

I am not sure these numbers reflect the cost of just the fuel cells or what.

Per the numbers you quote it is a bit more then 26k each deployed fuel cell.

But then they say "$9.7M more than 500 fuel cell powered lift trucks, along with fueling systems, data collection and analysis, and operator training to support them."

Sounds like PR hype -
and I am not real thrilled with hype used by people to get my money, even less with hype by people who have already spent my money.

I am not certain what the gov has to show for it.

I am certain I have nothing to show for it.

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