Aug 6 2010
United Natural Foods Inc. has successfully implemented its hydrogen fuel cell project in Sarasota, Florida. This technology has been completed successfully and has become fully operational at the company’s Florida distribution center.
Sixty five lift trucks have been powered with the GenDrive hydrogen fuel cell technology and have been assembled at the company’s Sarasota distribution facility while being designed for increasing the reliability, productivity and efficiency.
The hydrogen fuel cell technology generates energy by way of combining oxygen and hydrogen for yielding water, heat and electricity through an electrochemical reaction. Hydrogen is non-poisonous, non-toxic and is the lightest among all gases while also being the most abundantly found element across the universe.
The Sarasota lift truck fleet is anticipated to reduce carbon emissions by about 132 metric tons while creating around 640,000 kWh in annual energy savings. By means of this project, 36 existing trucks have been retrofitted while 29 new trucks have been added to the lift truck fleet that is powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology.