Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited ("CFCL") is pleased to announce it has passed a key milestone in commercial field trials of its fuel cell-powered combined heat and power (CHP) units.
CFCL has passed 10,000 hours of operation of its fuel cell-based CHP units across its current programme of independent customer field trials. CFCL is trialling demonstration fuel cell-based CHP units in Germany, Australia and New Zealand. These units convert natural gas into electricity and heat, with significantly higher energy efficiency and lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional methods of energy generation. The demonstration units are designed to produce 1kW of electricity, whilst capturing waste heat to provide hot water.
The ongoing trials are underway with: EWE, a leading German utility with annual sales of €6 billion and over one million electricity customers and 750,000 gas customers; Powerco, one of New Zealand's largest gas and electricity distributors servicing some 400,000 consumers; and szencorp, a leading Australian developer of environmentally friendly buildings. CFCL also conducted a trial last year with ETTA, one of Australasia's largest and most prominent training institutions for the electricity, gas and telecom industries. The units, installed at the customers' premises, are monitored and controlled over the internet by the customer and CFCL.
Brendan Dow, CFCL Chief Executive Officer, said: "The announcements we made last year that we had delivered fuel cells into the hands of four customers for evaluation was a turning point for CFCL. To have passed 10,000 hours of operation within these trials demonstrates that we have developed a robust fuel cell system which functions in real-world conditions.
The early focus of these trials has been to demonstrate that the system as a whole works reliably. We've had strong feedback from customers - namely the energy companies - that field trials are an important step in understanding our customers' needs and gaining experience in actually integrating fuel cell units into an electricity network. These trials allow us to feed back our findings into our product development, which will ultimately lead to more efficient and reliable fuel cell units."
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