Fuel Cell Notes | Green Energy News

March 28, 2005 – Vol.10 No.1

FUEL CELL NOTES.

GM, DaimlerChrysler and Ballard all put out noteworthy announcements this week.

GM will invest another $44 million over five years ($ 8.8 million per year) to help build a fleet of 40 fuel cell vehicles for testing in the U.S. The U.S Department of Energy will match those funds for a total of $88 million.

The funds will also be used to generally advance the technology.

In a separate deal Shell Hydrogen will support GM by setting up five hydrogen filling stations. One each in Washington D.C., New York City, metropolitan Washington, New York state and in California.

DaimlerChrysler has committed more than $70 million over five years to a joint partnership with the U.S Department of Energy known as the Controlled Fleet and Hydrogen Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project, which links BP and other companies to further develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the U.S.

The funds, $14 million each year, will be used to help operate DaimlerChrysler's fleet of 100 fuel cell vehicles (some of which are in the U.S.) and will be used for outreach programs promoting fuel cell vehicles and a hydrogen economy.

Ballard Power Systems has published a Road Map that the company says it will follow to make fuel cells commercially viable by 2010 - five years from now.

Destinations on the map include fuel cells with a lifetime of at least 5000 hours, a freeze start capability of minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) , a volumetric power density of 2500 Watts net/liter and (the biggie) a fuel cell stack cost of $30 per kilowatt (net) at a volume production of 500,000 units. A 50-kilowatt stack would be $1500, a 100-kilowatt $3000. That cost wouldn’t include vital components like pumps and fans, the electric drive motor, battery pack or hydrgen storage device.

Ballard claims it is well on its way along the map with fuel cell stacks that will start up at -20 C (-4 F) that last more than 2200 hours, about the same as 100,000 kilometers of driving. Visit Ballard at http://www.ballard.com/ .