Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. (Japan) introduced a new commercial residential polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) co-generation system jointly developed with Ebara Ballard Corp. (Tokyo, Japan), a joint venture between EBARA Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) and Ballard Power Systems Inc. (Vancouver, BC, Canada), and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (MEI, Japan) into the market on a limited scale on February 8, 2005.
Tokyo Gas reported that 200 units will be installed in certain areas where maintenance capabilities have been established within Tokyo Gas supply areas by the end of fiscal-year 2005. Tokyo Gas has also introduced a new gas rate schedule for residential fuel cell co-generation systems. A fuel cell partnership agreement will be signed with users to collect operational data and opinions from users, and feed back the information for further improvement of the performance of the system so that it can be ready for a diffusion phase.
Applications for the agreement will be accepted from January 2005. Full-scale diffusion, with thousands of units per year, is expected to be in fiscal-year 2008 and onward.
