Fuel Cell Intel Begins

I will be creating a regular flow of real-time analysis and commentary on the global fuel cell industry. The industry as a whole is in the midst of a great sea change at present, trying to segue from a R&D engineering based field built around proof-of-concept trials and demonstrations (fuel-cell chevies drive 300 miles (thats 500 kms.) on one tank of hydrogen!!!), to actual commercial, cost-justified, installations.

Next week's Grove X symposium in London and October's 31st annual Fuel Cell Seminar in San Antonio will both for the first time feature a focus on commercial products. When the smoke finally clears (can we do something about all those noisy, unreliable, polluting diesel generators please?), we hope to see a viable industry arise from the ashes of previous false starts, just like the Phoenix and Hexis.

I will keep tabs on high profile public FC companies like FuelCell Energy, Plug Power, Ballard, Voller, CFCL, big entities with FC aspirations like Rolls Royce, Siemens, Toshiba, Air Liquide, and Wartsila, and below-the-radar upstarts llike Altergy, Bloom Energy, and CellTech.

And I'll expect feedback and hopefully news from India and China where the market and expertise are great but the news is small.

Jim Horwitz
Cambridge, MA, USA