Ceramic Fuel Cells Signs Product Development Agreement for Residential Combined Heat and Power System
Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd. (CFCL) has signed a new product development agreement with EWE, one of Germany’s top five energy suppliers, and Bruns Heiztechnik GmbH (Bruns), a specialist German boiler manufacturer. The project partners will design and develop a fully integrated m-CHP unit for the German residential market.
CFCL received an initial order for its field trial demonstration units from EWE in July 2005. At that time CFCL and EWE also signed a letter of intent to commercialize fuel cell based m-CHP units. In June 2006, CFCL received a second order from EWE, for ten NetGen™ prototype units, as part of an ongoing field trial program. Under the terms of the product development agreement, CFCL will collaborate with Bruns to design and construct 1kW m-CHP units to meet EWE’s specifications for the German market.
The first stage of the project is to design and operate an ’Alpha’ unit, whereby a CFCL NetGen unit, a Bruns high efficiency condensing boiler and a thermal store will be integrated and operated via a single control unit. Work on this stage has begun and is expected to be completed in 2007. The second stage is to create a near-commercial ’Beta’ unit, comprising a single physical unit in which a CFCL fuel cell module is fully integrated with a Bruns’ boiler, without the thermal store.
