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UCSD to Become Testing Ground For Fuel Cell Technology

While fuel cell technology has been around for decades, it has yet to be developed on a large scale. A lack of funding and reliability has slowed its deployment as a clean source of electrical power.

But in San Diego it is taking hold as more state and federal subsidies for green energy are making their way to companies developing the technology.

So far, locally installed fuel cell sites that successfully generate electricity through battery-like chemical reactions include:

• Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina on Harbor Island Drive, 1 megawatt.

• Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina West Tower, 500 kilowatts.

• Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, 750 kilowatts.

Meanwhile, UC San Diego has received $11 million from the California Public Utilities Commission in what is touted as the nation’s first advanced energy storage project to receive state incentive funds.

Planned is a 2.8-megawatt fuel cell at UCSD to be paired with another 2.8-megawatt energy storage system.

Electricity generated will be used to cool campus buildings and store electricity for use during peak demands. It is calculated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8,200 tons annually.

Methane trapped and cleaned from the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant will fuel planned fuel cells at UCSD and those at the city’s Point Loma and South Bay wastewater treatment plants. That methane is now burned off.

UCSD System Moving Forward

Key to the UCSD system is its ability to generate clean energy and store it for use when needed. But the system, while fully funded and formally announced last July, has yet to be implemented, says UCSD spokesman Rex Graham.

“It’s a complicated project,” said Graham. “We’re just in due diligence.” As for when it is expected to be up and running, he added, “I can’t give you a timeline.” Still, Graham says the project is “moving forward.”

Ken Frisbie, managing director of BioFuels Energy LLC of Encinitas, the company hired to deploy UCSD’s fuel cell and storage system, declined comment when contacted by the San Diego Business Journal.

Lee Krevat, director of smart grid projects for San Diego Gas & Electric Co., says 20 years ago the utility bought 10 200-kilowatt fuel cells.

They were costly, and had reliability and durability issues.

Lee Krevat

“We continue to visit fuel cell companies,” said Krevat. “It’s hard to know if they’re going to be around.”

Beyond getting affordable and reliable fuel cells from suppliers, he says, it’s important that there are some assurances that the company will be around over the long haul, so that it can warranty the fuel cells it sells.

Small fuel cell companies don’t provide any reason to believe that they will survive for years to come, and “are hard to get excited about,” said Krevat. “If it’s a big company with deep pockets you can get much more excited.”

Fuel cell technology still has to establish itself, he adds. “Everybody I’ve talked to has felt it is not yet proven.”

Technology in Remote Areas

If it works, he sees it as a way to provide power for a utility in areas where power is needed but where there aren’t many transmission lines.

Fuel cell energy doesn’t ramp up fast, he says, so it needs the support of the larger power grid. And because it can’t start up quickly, it wouldn’t be used to help handle peak power loads.

The bigger fuel cell companies such as Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale and Oregon-based ClearEdge Power are among those claiming to have cutting edge, reliable products. Krevat says the keys for these companies’ success is generating enough orders so prices go down, and of course, staying in business over the long haul.

Stu Aaron, Bloom Energy’s vice president of product management and marketing, answered an e-mailed question from the Business Journal about how the company responds to questions about technology reliability and its prospects for staying in business.

“Bloom Energy has been in business since 2001,” writes Aaron. “Following millions of cumulative hours of testing and validation and several years of successful field trials, we shipped our first commercial Energy Servers in 2008. Since that time our systems have continually produced clean, reliable, affordable electricity for some of the biggest and most demanding companies in the world. We are committed to continuing to scale our business to meet the significant demand for our product and look forward to partnering with utilities to help them address their numerous challenges with generation, transmission and distribution, and renewable portfolio standards.”

While companies like Bloom and ClearEdge try to supply the emerging commercial market for the technology, one online retailer in San Diego sells off-the-shelf fuel cell technology aimed at high schools, colleges and research institutes.

Off-the-Shelf Items Available Online

Fuel Cell Store manager Cathy Parker says the site was launched in 1989 in Boulder, Colo., and moved to San Diego in December 2007. It’s a division of publicly traded ECOtality Inc., which is traded on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol ETLE. Based in Tempe, Ariz., ECOtality has a reported $1 million in annual sales. Sister companies include eTec, a company also known as Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. that makes fast-charging batteries for electric vehicles, and San Diego-based Innergy Power Corp., which manufactures renewable solar energy modules and rechargeable batteries.

Fuel Cell Store sells fuel cell kits, and fuel cells are matched to the power output of customers’ needs. Its biggest fuel cell is 5 kilowatts, which can power appliances and lab instruments, but costs $15,000. Hydrogen is needed to run it, and that can be supplied, or the user has to produce his or her own from water.

“The technology is still in its infant stages,” said Parker.

The store also offers components and materials needed to build fuel cells. The kits have been used to teach students from fourth grade all the way up to college, says Parker.

Overseas demand for products is coming from Egypt, Germany and India, where fuel cell research is in full throttle. Graduate students here are customers, but Parker figures fuel cell research in other countries is much more of a mainstream study than here, where the technology is still relatively unknown.

“A lot of people don’t understand what fuel cells are, how they operate and the cost of operation,” she said. “They think it’s easily installed, like a solar panel. But it’s a little bit more involved than that. They don’t quite understand.”

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