Ballard, Amplat Pilot South African Fuel-Cell Power Supply

---

Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Developers hope to soon expand a South African pilot project that uses fuel cells to provide power to remote communities.

Following the launch of a pilot project to supply power to 34 households in Kroonstad in South Africa's Free State province, Karim Kassam, vice president of Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ:BLDP) (Burnaby, British Columbia) business development, said that fuel cells are cheaper to operate than diesel generators.

BDLP is partnering with Anglo Platinum (OTC:AGPPY) (Amplat) (Johannesburg, South Africa) in the test project that, if successful, will be followed by a plan to install 300 fuel cells in remote areas by 2015.

The fuel cells weigh about 300 kilograms (kg), compared with 1,000-kg diesel generators that produce similar power. The cell phone company Vodacom is already using 300 platinum-based fuel cells at installations around the country.

The pilot project will supply households with up to 60 kilovolt-amps/48 kilovolts (kV) of power at peak periods, using a hybrid system of power cells and batteries. Households will receive enough electrical power for TVs, radios, lighting, refrigeration, cooking and charging mobile phones.

The power generation units consist of three platinum-based, 5-kilowatt (kW) cell stacks and a 15,000-liter fuel tank containing a 63% methanol, 37% water mixture. The units can provide power generation for up to three months.

The methanol mix is fed through a palladium diffuser, which extracts only pure hydrogen, into the Ballard fuel cells, which contain platinum catalysts that generate direct-current (DC) electricity.

Some of the current is returned to batteries, which kick in during peak demand, and are recharged during the night and early morning. The balance of the current is converted into 230-volt (V) alternating current (AC) for immediate use. The system also sends information to a research team.

The companies are subsidizing the cost of delivering power during the test period. The next generation of fuel will be cheaper and more efficient.

Andrew Hinkly, Amplat's head of marketing, said growing a high-tech industry in South Africa is not a distant dream. Potentially, the country could become involved in design, local engineering, assembly, installation, and servicing of fuel cell units for power, telecommunications and transport.

"What is key is government commitment to this technology," Hinkly said. "Our existing power producer procurement program is not appropriate because fuel cells are not designed to feed power into the grid. They are for local use. We need the Department of Energy to commit to it as an off-grid solution to enable Eskom [the national power utility] to act on it with a procurement strategy."

For related information, see June 24, 2013, article--South Africa Unites with Ballard Power and Amplat in Fuel Cell Development.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, three offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.