FuelCell Energy's (Nasdaq: FCEL) Asia-Pacific strategic partner, Marubeni Corporation (TSE: 8002) placed an order for 4 megawatts (MW) of DFC power plants.
FuelCell Energy will manufacture the units and deliver the power plants to Marubeni customers in 2005. Marubeni's order is for 16 DFC300A power plants with megawatt-class DFC1500 and DFC3000 power plants available to accommodate customer requirements.
Including today's orders, Marubeni has committed to more than 8 MW since 2000 in three separate orders.
Five DFC300A power plants are operating at four customer sites in Japan — Kirin's Toride Brewery near Tokyo; City of Fukuoka's municipal waste treatment facility; JAPEX's Katakai natural gas gathering station near Nagaoka City; and two units providing power and steam for Epson Corporation's Ina factory in the Nagano Prefecture.
Marubeni is expanding its initiatives:
* developing a network of "sub-distributors" in Japan, which will market DFC power plants in designated territories throughout the country.
* creating an organization to provide operations and maintenance support services for customers.
* investigating opportunities for an Asia-based assembly, packaging and testing facility — currently, all DFC power plants sold to Marubeni customers are manufactured in Connecticut and shipped to Japan.
Marubeni will study the opportunity to receive fuel cell stack module components from FuelCell Energy in Connecticut and then assemble complete power plants in Asia to be shipped to customers.
"We see strong interest in DFC power plants from the industrial, commercial, utility and municipal market segments," said Takeo Kobayashi, General Manager of Marubeni's New Energies Department.
"Marubeni is focused on developing the market for clean, efficient distributed power generation in the Asia-Pacific region. DFC technology is the key to serving these markets."
Marubeni has received warrants to purchase up to one million shares of FuelCell Energy Common Stock. The agreement calls for the warrants to be issued on a graduated scale as order commitments are received up to a maximum of 45 megawatts of fuel cell power plants. The exercise prices of the warrants range from $13.38 to $18.73 and the warrants will expire in 2006. The first tranche of warrants to purchase 200,000 have been earned with this agreement.
There is a particular focus on the use of opportunity fuels such as anaerobic digester gas (ADG). The current municipal and industrial wastewater treatment market in Japan presents a good fit for DFC products, with more than 2,000 megawatts of potential electricity generation.
The initial size of this market segment, and recently passed regulations that provide government support for additional wastewater treatment facilities throughout Japan, represents a sustainable growth market for distributed power generation, including DFC technology.
About Direct FuelCells
Direct FuelCells efficiently generates clean electricity at distributed customer locations, including hospitals, schools, universities, hotels and other commercial and industrial facilities, as well as in grid-support applications for utility customers.
They operate similarly to large, continuously operating batteries except they use a fuel to generate electricity, such as natural gas or digester gas from wastewater treatment facilities. DFC power plants are hydrogen generators, and because of this are ready today and do not require the creation of a hydrogen infrastructure.
FuelCell Energy, Inc., based in Danbury, Connecticut, develops and manufactures high temperature hydrogen fuel cells for clean electric power generation, currently offering DFC power plant products ranging in size from 250 kilowatts to 2 megawatts for applications up to 50 megawatts.
Its subsidiary, Global Thermoelectric Inc., is a leader in the development of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) products and the world's largest manufacturer and distributor of thermoelectric stationary power generators for use in remote locations.
The Company has developed commercial distribution alliances for its carbonate Direct FuelCell technology with MTU CFC Solutions in Europe; Marubeni Corporation in Asia; Enbridge Inc. in Canada; Caterpillar, PPL Energy Plus, Chevron Energy Solutions and Alliance Power in the U.S. FuelCell Energy is developing Direct FuelCell technology for stationary power plants with the U.S. Department of Energy through its Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.
The Marubeni Corporation, established in 1858, is one of Japan's leading general trading/marketing houses (sogo shosha). The Company was ranked as the 25th largest in Fortune Magazine's Global Fortune 500 list for 2002. Marubeni has 12 Divisions with operations that encompass domestic, import/export, offshore trade and investment activities, which range from the development of natural resources to the retail marketing of finished products. The Company, based in Tokyo, conducts these operations through a worldwide business network that includes 52 overseas corporate offices and 28 overseas subsidiaries, for a total of 131 offices in 73 countries.
Marubeni's Utility & Infrastructure Division has been involved in the development of over 20,000 megawatts of power generation worldwide. The Division has expanded its efforts to include distributed generation technologies, power quality & reliability technologies and energy & environmental services.
Loading...