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…