Jun 11 2008
UTC Power, a United Technologies Corp. company, today announced that the New York Power Authority (NYPA) selected the company to supply 12 fuel cells totaling 4.8 megawatts of power for the Freedom Tower and three other new towers under construction at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.
Delivery of the PureCell(R) Model 400 fuel cell systems will begin in January of 2009. The systems will together constitute one of the largest fuel cell installations in the world.
"We are extremely pleased to be part of this prestigious, landmark project that is a global example of green building design," said UTC Power President Jan van Dokkum. "NYPA has been a long-time customer and champion of using fuel cells to generate clean on-site power. UTC Power has 16 fuel cells deployed in the Greater New York area with NYPA and other customers."
"We are committed to helping make clean energy initiatives at the new World Trade Center site a reality," said Roger B. Kelley, NYPA president and chief executive officer. "Fuel cells are one of the environmentally beneficial technologies that the Power Authority is investing in under Governor Paterson's leadership to combat greenhouse gas emissions and diversify the state's energy mix."
The Freedom Tower will be owned by the Port Authority of New York, and Towers 2, 3 and 4 will be owned and managed by World Trade Center Properties, LLC, an affiliate of Silverstein Properties, Inc.
The PureCell Model 400 power plant is one of the cleanest, quietest and most energy-efficient on-site power generating technologies available; no fossil fuel is burned to produce 400 kilowatts of power. The fuel cell's ultra low emissions meet the strictest air emissions requirements in the United States.
UTC Power said this new model fuel cell has double the operating life and delivers twice the power and thermal energy of its predecessor system.
"We've gained a lot of experience over 15-plus years of building and deploying fuel cells for on-site power at diverse sites worldwide," said van Dokkum. "We expect this next-generation fuel cell to be embraced by commercial customers who want to improve their energy productivity while simultaneously enhancing their electrical infrastructure reliability and reducing their environmental impact."
The thermal energy generated by fuel cells -- a natural byproduct of a fuel cell's electro-chemical process -- will be harnessed to provide facility cooling and heating at the World Trade Center site towers, reducing the customers' power needs and expenses. Incorporating fuel cells into the World Trade Center will contribute toward the attainment of LEED(R) (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification points because of the optimal energy use. In 2006, it was announced the complex would be designed to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Gold certification requirements and that all of the facilities involved would be built to a design standard 20 percent more energy efficient than the New York Energy Conservation Construction Code.
On-site power generation at the World Trade Center site also will help reduce the need for electric infrastructure upgrades in an area of the city where the grid is already capacity-constrained.