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Over the next eight years, ClearEdge will build 50 megawatts of fuel cells for Güssing Renewable Energy, which will install them in homes and businesses as part of systems that also include biogas to run the fuel cells and energy storage.
“This is a big breakthrough for fuel cells,” Russell Ford, ClearEdge’s chief executive, said in an interview. “Austria and Germany are probably the two most aggressive locations in Europe moving forward with fuel cell technology.”
Fuel cells generate power and heat by converting hydrogen, natural gas or biofuels into electricity through an electrochemical process while minimizing the emission of pollutants associated with global warming and health problems.
The deal follows a $73.5 million round of funding ClearEdge raised from investors, including Güssing, in August and marks the Hillsboro, Ore., startup’s move into bigger fuel cell systems. ClearEdge has made a 5-kilowatt fuel cell designed for homes and small businesses but now will manufacture systems as large as 200 kilowatts.
Over the next three years, ClearEdge will deliver 8.5 megawatts of fuel cells to Güssing with the total hitting 15 megawatts by 2016 and 50 megawatts in 2020.
In the United States, pricey fuel cells have proven attractive chiefly in states like California that have high electricity costs and offer incentives to subsidy their purchase. But Ford says the high price of electricity in Europe makes the technology much more competitive with traditional electricity providers.
“Peak costs in Austria are three to four times what costs are in California,” says Ford. “There’s a huge incentive to employ this technology.”
He doesn’t expect the European financial crisis to dampen demand for fuel cells. “Because of the cost of electricity there and the need for continuous power, there’s a stronger demand than supply,” he notes. “People are still going to need power and heat regardless of the financial crisis.”