Fuel Cell 2000 Notes High Profile Companies Deploying Technology
In recent days, several big name companies have purchased, installed and deployed fuel cells at facilities around the United States, bolstering the impressive list of leading businesses already utilizing the technology, according to a press release from Fuel Cells 2000, a non-profit education and outreach organization that promotes fuel cells and hydrogen.
Fuel cells are making an impact in every stage of the industrial process – providing reliable and green electricity to manufacturing, processing and production facilities and headquarters, powering the forklifts used at distribution and storage warehouses, and providing electricity, heating and cooling to the retail and grocery stores selling the finished product. Whatever the application, businesses are finding that fuel cells not only reduce their carbon footprint, but help boost their bottom line. And the companies that are using them, like them and are buying more.
Most recently:
- Federal Express (FedEx) held a ribbon-cutting at its Springfield, Mo., facility to celebrate the converting of all its battery-powered forklifts to hydrogen fuel cells, 35 in all. FedEx plans to convert five propane-powered forklifts in the near future. The company also has a Bloom Energy unit at its Oakland, Calif., hub.
- Coca-Cola Refreshments (CCR) installed two UTC Power PureCell® Model 400 fuel cell systems to provide 35 percent of the electricity and heat at its Elmsford, N.Y., production facility. The fuel cells will eliminate 2,635 metric tons of carbon dioxide and more than 4 metric tons of nitrogen oxide emissions and save millions of gallons of water. CCR recently signed a contract to install two more units at a bottling plant in East Hartford, Conn., and has 40 fuel cell forklifts at a Charlotte, N.C., production plant.
- Adobe Systems installed 12 Bloom Energy Servers equaling 1.2 MW of power on the 5th floor of Adobe’s West Tower in San Jose, Calif.
- BMW purchased 86 fuel cell-powered forklifts, tuggers and stackers and is installing six Linde hydrogen dispensers at its Spartanburg, S.C., manufacturing plant. The hydrogen is a byproduct of a sodium chlorate plant which is purified, compressed and liquefied by using electricity produced from renewable hydropower.
- A new Albertsons supermarket in San Diego, has installed a 400-kW fuel cell from UTC Power to generate nearly 90 percent of its electricity. SUPERVALU, Albertsons parent company, has a fuel cell system installed at Chestnut Hill, Mass., Star Market.
These new announcements confirm the trend chronicled in the new report, “The Business Case for Fuel Cells: Why Top Companies Are Purchasing Fuel Cells Today” by Fuel Cells 2000.
The report profiles 38 companies and corporations, including 11 Fortune 500 companies, that are purchasing and deploying fuel cells in various capacities, highlighting the attractive benefits and savings of fuel cells over competing technologies. The companies profiled in the report, cumulatively, have ordered, installed or deployed more than 1,000 fuel cell forklifts; 58 stationary fuel cell systems totaling almost 15 MW of power; and more than 600 fuel cell units at telecom sites.
The free report can be downloaded at www.fuelcells.org/.