Energy Visions Inc. (EVI, Ottawa, ON) announced that the joint development program between EVI and the Alberta Research Council Inc. (ARC, Alberta, Canada) is being restructured to change the immediate focus to completing the first-stage research. The intention of the EVI Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) program is to resolve the obstacles of fueling infrastructure and high cost that are restricting other systems.
Work in the past year has resulted in a redesign of the basic fuel cell and the EVI has chosen to complete the research on the new design and to prototype the complete electric-hybrid system. The focus will result in a deferral of CDN$500,000 of funds scheduled to be paid by ARC for engineering. The funds become available for engineering of the redesigned system following joint approval of the prototype by EVI and ARC.