U.S. Army renews contract with hydrogen power plant co. FuelCell for $1.5M
FuelCell Energy, a developer of hydrogen separator technology for fuel cell-based power plants, announced today that it landed a $1.5 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue its work with the military.
The Connecticut-based company first partnered with the Army in 2007 when it received $1 million for this research, which remains unfinished. The technology in question, used to separate hydrogen out of gas mixtures to generate electricity, could potentially be used to power transportation and other industrial processes for the military.
The new money, to be used over the next 20 months mostly for research, is expected to result in a field demonstration plant using the hydrogen separator, and owned and operated by FuelCell. This facility would generate up to 300 kilowatts of ultra-clean electricity, as well as heat and 300 pounds pure hydrogen as byproducts.
FuelCell scored $1.9 million in stimulus funds via the U.S. Department of Energy last month to work on a high-temperature recuperator for its existing hydrogen fuel cell systems (different than what it is doing for the army). It also bagged $24.2 million in June from a sale of 6.7 million shares of common stock, which it earmarked for expansion of manufacturing.
VentureBeat is hosting GreenBeat, the seminal executive conference
on the Smart Grid, on Nov. 18-19, featuring keynotes from Nobel Prize
winner Al Gore and Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr. Get your early-bird
tickets for $495 before Oct. 10 at GreenBeat2009.com.
Next Story: AT&T: Just kidding! VoIP apps like Skype can run on our network
Previous Story: General Electric turns Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City into appliance laboratory
About the Author, Camille Ricketts
Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
-
links