Here you go guys, I wrote that story as a freelance for them....

Here you go guys, I wrote that story as a freelance for them. The paper changed the heading from my original heading which is below.

There is also some text at the tail here that the paper had no room to run. I have marked that point.

Answering someone's comment about their communications strategy, CFCL Melbourne simply responded to my requests which came to them out of the blue!

But I was delighted at their confident and open responses to my enquiries -- especially estimating the purchase/running/payback figs.

Note: this is how they see it pricing once the unit is in VOLUME production. Looks exciting to me.

There was no ad taken by CFCL in this feature. It appeared there purely on merit as I saw it.

I hold a position with CFU, $1000 at $0.925 so bias if any would come from a long term holder and believer.


MINI POWER STATION FOR HOMES CAN
CUT POWER BILLS BY $1000 A YEAR

Australians are expected to have access to a money-saving, natural gas-fuelled home power station from early next year.

About the size of a dishwasher, the BlueGen unit has a fuel cell that produces up to 48 kilowatt hours of electricity a day -- more than twice the amount needed to power an average home.

It will produce 200 litres of hot water a day as a by-product, while operating without combustion or noise. Surplus electricity can be sold back to the grid.

The cost of generating the electricity with gas will be around 11.1 cents per kW (on current gas pricing) which is 39 per cent cheaper than today's typical price of 18.1 cents per kW, including GST.

The operating cost includes maintenance of the system over its 15 year life.

The BlueGen's Melbourne-based maker, Ceramic Fuels Cells Limited (CFCL) was formed in 1992 by the CSIRO and a consortium of Government bodies, energy and industrial companies.

In February 2009 CFCL achieved world-leading electrical efficiency of 60%. This very high efficiency cuts carbon dioxide emissions (black balloons) – and unlike brown coal the units have no nitrogen oxide or sulphur dioxide emissions.

BlueGen was launched in May this year by the Victorian Premier John Brumby.

BlueGen captures and uses ‘waste’ heat for a total efficiency of 85 per cent.

This compares with the average efficiency of Victoria’s current brown coal power plants of about 25 per cent. Currently, about 70 per cent of energy is lost as heat during the electricity generation process, and a further 5 to 8 per cent is lost in transmission and distribution.

Brown coal generators also use 2.2 litres of drinking water from our dams to generate one kilowatt hour of power.

The BlueGen uses mains water only during start-up, and then actually makes its own water from its ‘waste’ gas. Excess water from the unit can be used as grey water for the garden, or flushing toilets. The water savings are up to 95% compared with brown coal power generators.

Compared with brown coal, each BlueGen unit can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 75 per cent -- or 18 tonnes per home, per year (360,000 black balloons).

"If our units replaced just 7 per cent of Victoria's electricity from brown coal, the State would achieve the Federal Government's target of a 5 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, well before 2020," Managing Director Brendan Dow said at the launch.

Ceramic Fuel Cells has signed a memorandum of understanding with VicUrban to showcase the BlueGen units in VicUrban housing developments.

Reducing the power bill by around $1000 a year, each BlueGen unit will pay its purchase cost off in a projected seven years. The unit is designed for a lifetime of 15 years. These figures will become even more attractive as coal fired electricity prices rise, particularly in the face of climate change.

The BlueGen powered house will stay connected to the power network -- like a house with a solar photovoltaic (PV) system -- and can sell electricity back to the grid whenever the house is not using it. This effectively turns your power meter backwards. BlueGen units can run alongside solar electricity generation.

The BlueGen will be the Australian version of a home power station being developed in Europe by CFCL, which has a laboratory and head office in Noble Park Melbourne, a ceramic powder-making plant already running in Britain and an assembly plant under construction in Germany.

Leading utility customers in Europe and Japan are testing and developing products with CFCL, including GdF/Suez, Remeha/De Dietrich, E.ON UK
and EWE. In Japan CFCL is working with Paloma, which is better known in Australia as Rheem and Solahart.

Subject to agreed price and performance targets, E.ON UK will order a minimum of 100,000 units over six years from 2012. Production is being scheduled from October this year in Germany.

A prototype of the Australian version was switched on in the Noble Park laboratory in May by the Victorian Premier, Mr Brumby.

Ceramic Fuel Cells has invested more than $230 million in developing its technology, and employs 90 people.

"Our modelling for Victoria shows a payback of about 7 years on a capital cost of about $8,000 once our products are in volume production," says Brendan Dow.

[THEY RAN OUT OF ROOM HERE THIS IS NEW}

"However there is also large potential upside, particularly as electricity prices are likely to rise.

"To be conservative our financial model assumes flat or nominal increases in power prices -- whereas in NSW they have just increased prices by 21 per cent, and Treasury modelling shows Victorian prices increasing by 23 per cent from 2010 to 2015.

"Even at initial higher capital costs, the payback is faster than solar panel systems -- and this assumes no Government subsidies for our product."

A home with a BlueGen unit installed can actually produce lower carbon dioxide emissions than a home installing an entry-level solar power system, because the BlueGen can provide all the power the home needs over a year, whereas a home with a solar system still uses a lot of power from the grid, which comes from brown coal.

Visit www.cfcl.com.au