ClearEdge Weans Austria City From Gas With Top Fuel Cell Order
Date Tuesday the 10th, January 2012
ClearEdge Power Inc., a closely held maker of stationary fuel cells, agreed to provide 50 megawatts of its systems to an Austrian energy company, the largest sale of such devices to date.
Gussing Renewable Energy GmbH will pay about $500 million for the fuel cells as part of an effort to curtail its use of natural gas to produce electricity, Hillsboro, Oregon-based ClearEdge said today in a statement.
Gussing, based in the Austrian city of the same name, also operates two gasification plants that convert organic materials into biogas that can be used to power the fuel cells, said Russel Ford, ClearEdge’s chief executive officer.
“There will probably be a bit of a mixture to begin with, but ultimately the goal is to get away from the Russian pipeline essentially and bring energy independence in Austria,” Ford said in a telephone interview.
ClearEdge is to deliver by 2015 enough of its polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells to produce 8.6 megawatts of capacity. About 25 percent percent of them will run on biogas, Ford said.
Another 8 megawatts of capacity is due by 2016 and the balance of the order by 2020, when Gussing expects all of them to be fueled by biogas, Ford said.
ClearEdge’s fuel cells primarily use natural gas to produce heat and electricity, according to its website. This is the company’s first sale in Europe.
The largest stationary fuel-cell order prior to this was Bloom Energy Corp.’s sale to Delmarva Power & Light Co. of about 30 megawatts of its systems over 21 years, Ford said. Delaware regulators announced approval of the contract in October.