I-Balance Project

Summary/Cliff Notes:

A project that is characterized by the integration of gas in one integrated energy service.  Results from this project will be rolled out in the Drenthe village HOOGHALEN; where a 1000 Smart Households will test the anticipated savings from the project

At the moment the project provides a combination  of technologies that make sense for a residential area is: more
solar, five wind turbines, 9 fuel cells around a scale of 40 households
Whilst not directly involved one of their papers talks how rather than sell back to the grid Alliander are experimenting with a different approach, in which fuel cells  with batteries and fast Electrolytic capacitors (condensers) are combined so that high and low power demands can be taken care of with no issues around reaction time.

Still too expensive for the Dutch market.

SOFCs can be deployed at a district level powering around 4 homes during times of cloud cover or no wind.  A groupd opf sfoc MCHP can be used to flatten out the demand from renewables for a wider residential area.

Despite being easliy integrated there is still no clear business model or typical type of installation of the units.   More obvious application is wider residential use or large energy consumer like small business. As the price drops a larger number of applications will become obvious

Here is a summary
http://www.i-balance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/artikel.jpg

Another very tasty part of I-Balance is that they have fuel cell EV charing points.  The only reference to FC tech I can find in any of their literature if Bluegen/CFCL so , fingers crossed there are a few more sales here.

Whilst it all reads very positive for CFCL and their involvement, and IMO quite possibly going to result in an order for a few dozen units...none of it reads as though they are going to order 500-1000 units over a 12-18 month period

The only really encouraging this is gasterras involvement and the continued itnerest they show in the unit, including use in the MD's own home for charging his EV.

Going to keep digging, almost satisfying myself that there is enough to take a punt with some profits from some other shares. The fact that I have not read anything from CFCL about the I-Balance project is disappointing. Even if it is only a few units, it is still good info that they could publish in their updates/newsletters etc