Dec 1 2017
FuelCell Energy, an international company dealing with clean, innovative, and economical fuel cell solutions for the supply, recovery, and storage of energy, has just reported the execution of a hydrogen and power off-take agreement with Toyota, highlighting a unique collaboration in which Toyota will buy renewable hydrogen for vehicle fueling produced on-site from a multi-megawatt SureSourceTM fuel cell power plant situated at the Port of Long Beach in California.
FuelCell Energy will install and run a fuel cell power plant that will be configured for hydrogen manufacture to produce and supply 100% renewable hydrogen for Toyota’s fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV’s) and its heavy duty fuel cell Class 8 proof of concept truck. The fuel cell plant will simultaneously produce renewable power to be supplied to the grid under the California Bioenergy Market Adjustment Tariff (BioMAT) program. This fuel cell solution meets Toyota’s fueling requirements cost-effectively and sustainably, while supporting the progress of California’s hydrogen fueling infrastructure and complying with the state’s mandate for utilizing low-carbon and renewable sources.
Fueling our Proof of concept Semi-Truck, as well as our Mirai fuel cell electric vehicles with 100 percent renewable hydrogen from this stationary fuel cell system is a major accomplishment, and a key step in building a sustainable hydrogen ecosystem to help power Port operations, Toyota is a company dedicated to advancing sustainability, and this project supports our ongoing efforts to both eliminate carbon emissions and accelerate the development and adoption of emission-free fuel cell electric vehicles.
Doug Murtha, Group Vice President – Strategic Planning, Toyota.
This is an innovative and replicable global model for building an affordable hydrogen infrastructure to generate renewable transportation fuel that facilitates the wider adoption of fuel cell electric cars, trucks and buses, we are pleased to provide Toyota with a flexible project structure that meets their needs both sustainably and economically.
Chip Bottone, Chief Executive Officer, FuelCell Energy, Inc.
FuelCell Energy’s distributed hydrogen solution co-creates hydrogen and clean power from methane-based fuels such as renewable biogas. The methane is reformed to hydrogen using heat and water produced by the fuel cell, resulting in clean hydrogen production without water consumption. In January 2016 the California Air Resources Board (CARB) certified a prospective pathway for hydrogen production with this technology fueled by biogas. CARB's team performed a full Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) on the system and established that it has a negative carbon intensity, as the power and hydrogen generation process is carbon-neutral because of the use of renewable biogas and the fuel cell waste heat is applied to feed the internal reformation reactions.
The multi-megawatt SureSource HydrogenTM plant will be located at the Port of Long Beach, producing renewable hydrogen to fuel Toyota’s Mirai vehicles as they arrive at the Port and its heavy-duty fuel cell Class 8 proof of concept truck.
Fuel cells utilize an electro-chemical process to change a fuel source into electricity and heat in a very efficient process that releases almost no pollutants as the fuel is not burned. The blend of near-zero pollutants, modest land-use requirements, and noiseless operating nature of these stationary fuel cell power plants facilitates installation in urban locations where the power is consumed. Customers gain with operating cost reductions supplied in a manner that supports sustainability goals and optimizes power reliability.