Nuvera Fuel Cells

Early Mornings, Early Meetings, and Early (Forklift) Markets
By Bill Mitchell, Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Nuvera Fuel Cells

After waking up at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and spending 7 hours on a fully loaded airplane, I was really hoping that my early departure to the NHA Annual Hydrogen Conference in Sacramento would be informative and fruitful, as I was asked to host a series of “table talks” at the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell State Regional Initiatives meeting on Sunday afternoon at the Sacramento Convention Center.

Upon exiting the airport into a beautiful 70 degree day, with no clouds in sight, I was a little worried that everyone might play “hooky” and go visit wine country instead of showing up on a weekend to talk about hydrogen; I was happily mistaken.  The event, co-sponsored by D.O.E, the NHA, and the Clean Energy Group attracted about 100 people. 

Over the course of 3 hours, we discussed the role of early market opportunities as a means to ramp up the commercialization of fuel cells, with one of each of the seven tables giving concurrent talks to interested parties.  Every 20 minutes, the tables would rotate, and we began again.  As someone from the meeting put it, it was like speed dating to find your first fuel cell match.

Some of the topics discussed at the meeting included:

• permitting tools,
• policy,
• fuel cells for prime power/critical loads,
• fuel cells for backup/remote power, and my favorite,
• fuel cells for material handling equipment.

Overall, there was a high degree of interest and appreciation for the forklift opportunity in general, and the Nuvera Total Power Solution in specific. From the interaction with the attendees, many of whom had not been exposed to fuel cells before, one message became clear – fuel cells for forklifts is a real market opportunity that can save you money now.

Not bad for a first day’s work.  You can view a copy of the table talk presentation here.

My only disappointment of the day was that I did not get to see Governor Schwarzenegger to deliver the fuel cell message personally.  However, there are still four more days…

Coming up next week, several of Nuvera’s staff will be blogging daily from the National Hydrogen Association Annual Conference and the Edison Electric Institute Spring Meeting. Check back often to see the scoop!

NHA 2008 has the unique opportunity to spark dialogue between different players in the hydrogen marketplace, from the DOE to early commercial fuel cell producers to environmentalist groups and big name energy and auto companies.

EEI brings together the electric industry and their biggest customers, along with anyone that has an interest in either.

The bloggers:

Bill Mitchell is our VP of Sales and Marketing and will be blogging from the NHA conference. Look for updates from Bill on state and regional hydrogen initiatives.

James Cross is our VP of Technology and Product Development. He is moderating a session on Wednesday at NHA titled Fuel Cells: Improvements and Analysis.

Gus Block is a Marketing Director, and spends most of his time working with our partner, East Penn Manufacturing, on fuel cell material handling solutions for North America. Look for his posts coming from the EEI Spring meeting.

Danielle Andre - I’ll be checking in periodically from the EEI Spring meeting in sunny Florida!

For our other events, check out our events listing.

By Chris O’Brien, Senior Engineer
Nuvera Fuel Cells

Let me start by saying that it’s great fun to work on a project that gets noticed. From the start, we knew that the opportunity to design the fuel cell powertrain for Pininfarina’s Sintesi concept car would be a great showcase for our technology – a chance to get the word out about what fuel cells can do in a car that’s made for them. Then, a few weeks before the unveiling of the car at the Geneva Motor Show, the word hit the blogosphere:

“The fuel cells for the electric-hydrogen hybrid, rumored to be worth 700 horsepower all told, are being distributed all around the body…”
Autoblog Feb 7th 2008

“…it will be an electric-hydrogen hybrid system and not a typical one at that (not all concept cars need to generate 700 hp the way the Sintesi apparently does)…” AutoblogGreen Feb 7th 2008

“The advanced drivetrain was a joint-effort between Pininfarina and UK firm Nuvera Fuel Cells. Its makers claim the Sintesi develops a combined output of 700hp…”
Motor Authority March 3rd 2008

…and many more…

The word was getting out all right – it just happened to be inaccurate! Aside from the fact that we’re a US (not UK) company, the engine that we were busy designing didn’t have 700 horsepower! I still have no idea how that number got into all those stories. While the Sintesi may only have 240 horses under the hood (or actually, next to the wheels…there is no hood), it still drives like a high performance car.

While most people think of power as the defining characteristic of an engine, the power isn’t directly what makes the car accelerate - the torque on the wheels is responsible for that. Most combustion engines are quite good at this…at high speeds. IC engine cars rely on the transmission gearing to convert the engine shaft torque at a few thousand RPM to axle torque at a few hundred RPM. In the Sintesi, we have a completely different situation. The electric motors are right in the wheels - no transmission required - and these motors produce their highest torque at the lowest speeds. For the driver, this means that that from a standstill the fuel cell engine can funnel every bit of its power right into the wheels - providing a push-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration.

The end result? The Sintesi, with “only” 240 hp (110 from the fuel cells and 130 from the batteries), can accelerate from 0 - 60 mph in 6.4 seconds. That’s pretty fast. Top speed on the fuel cell power alone is 119 mph; with battery boost the car can reach 155 mph. Not bad for a car that also gets 50 miles per gallon and seats four!

For more information on the Sintesi, see Pininfarina’s site. To learn more about its engine, Nuvera’s Quadrivium Drive, check out this article.

By Kyle VanZandt, Field Service Engineer
Nuvera Fuel Cells

Nuvera’s Forza™ industrial power module was recently on display during the GLOBE 2008 conference in Vancouver, BC.
The biennial conference lasted 3 days, March 12th-14th, and was attended by thousands of the world’s leaders in politics, business and the environmental industry.

Tours of the Nuvera system were offered by our partner, Sacré-Davey Innovations.

The Forza system has been installed at the Easywash car wash since August, 2007 as part of the Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project (IWHUP). The 150 kW gross power fuel cell system delivers hot water to the car wash while providing enough electricity to run the Easywash facility and pushing excess energy created onto the electrical grid. Nuvera has been very fortunate to be involved with Sacré-Davey and the ‘Hydrogen Highway’ Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project (IWHUP).

To see a video of the IWHUP project, including Forza, click here.

With the first signs of Spring, I am reminded that we are embarking on the start of the annual conference season.  Nuvera will be all over the globe in the next few months, exhibiting at and attending tradeshows and seminars.  Our conference schedule is listed below.  If you are in the area, stop by and check out our products and meet some members of our team!

Spring Workshop, Edison Electric Institute

March 30 – April 2:
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin,
Lake Buena Vista, FL
Booth #421

Nuvera will be exhibiting with its partner, East Penn Manufacturing at this association meeting. 

NHA Annual Hydrogen Conference 2008

March 30 – April 3:
Sacramento Convention Center, CA

Nuvera staff members will be attending this annual conference.  Look for them on the show floor.

Nuvera conference attendees will be blogging LIVE from each of the above conferences, so mark your calendars for March 30 – April 3 to check out what is new and exciting in Orlando and Sacramento!

MIT Energy Conference

April 11, 5:00 – 800 PM: 
Kendall Square Marriott Hotel, Cambridge, MA

Nuvera will be exhibiting at this annual energy conference. Open to the community.

Hannover Fair 

April 21 – April 25:
Hannover, Germany
Hall 13, Stand E10

Nuvera’s PowerFlow, integrated into a Hoppecke battery tray and installed in a forklift truck, will be displayed at the NRW Future Energies Booth.

CeMAT 

May 27 – May 31:
Hannover, Germany
Open Air Site

Nuvera’s PowerFlow will be exhibited again with Hoppecke in a forklift truck.