Fuel Cells

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that as part of an interagency partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to strengthen American energy security and develop new clean energy technologies, DOD will be installing and operating 18 fuel cell backup power systems at eight military installations across the country.

The Departments will test how the fuel cells perform in real world operations, identify any technical improvements manufacturers could make to enhance performance, and highlight the benefits of fuel cells for emergency backup power applications. The projects are being conducted under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two Departments in July 2010. These projects aim to accelerate the deployment of this clean electricity technology at DOD facilities and provide data that will help identify future research areas for fuel cells.

Continued R&D efforts will be aimed at further reducing the costs of fuel cells. And hopefully as costs come down, fuel cells will become increasingly competitive in the commercial marketplace. Over the last decade, DOE has invested in research and development projects to advance fuel cell components such as catalysts and membranes at several companies including 3M, Dupont, Gore, Johnson Matthey, and BASF.

This research has helped reduce the costs of fuel cells by up to 80% since 2002, and many of these innovations are now being used in the fuel cell units being deployed by DOD. The following eight military installations will be receiving emergency fuel cell backup power units: - Fort Bragg, North Carolina - Fort Hood, Texas - The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York - Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland - Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey - Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Colorado - U.S.

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center 29 Palms, California - The Ohio National Guard, Columbus, Ohio Compared with diesel generators, which are often used for backup power, fuel cells use no petroleum, are quieter, and produce fewer pollutants and emissions. Fuel cells also typically require less maintenance than either generators or batteries, and can be monitored remotely to reduce maintenance time. The eight DOD installations were chosen based on responses from a joint DOD-DOE project proposal request.

LOGANEnergy of Sandy Springs, Georgia will manage the project, using fuel cells from four manufacturers: ReliOn, Inc. of Spokane, Washington; Altergy Systems of Folsom, California; Idatech, LLC of Bend, Oregon; and Hydrogenics Corporation of Ontario, Canada. The $6.6 million project is a joint effort by DOD’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

DOD will manage the project and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will collect performance data for the first two years of this five-year demonstration. The NREL data will be available to fuel cell developers and commercial and government leaders interested in adopting this technology. The interagency agreement covers a number of clean energy topic areas, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, alternative fuels, efficient transportation technologies and fueling infrastructure, as well as smart grid and energy storage technologies.

DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Program has funded research and development of catalysts, membranes, and other fuel cell components that has resulted in more than 250 patents and 30 commercially available technologies, many of which are in the military backup power systems announced recently.