FuelCellsWorks

Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom–UPS Systems’ Managing Director, Tom Sperrey, and his crew have been declared winners of the prestigious Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) racing division.

Tom and crew crossed the finishing line on 8th December having sailed his boat ‘Nightlife’ from Gran Canaria to St. Lucia. A portable fuel cell on board provided auxiliary power.

The annual transatlantic race is part of the largest ocean sailing event in the world, attracting over 200 yachts each year. The race starts in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and covers 2,700 nautical miles, finishing in Rodney Bay St. Lucia. Nightlife, skippered by Tom Sperrey, won the RORC IRC Racing Division of ARC 2009 and received their winner’s trophy in front of 800 people at the prize giving ceremony.

Nightlife had on board an EFOY 1600 methanol fuel cell. The unit generated 65W of electricity to power the navigation, computer and communications equipment.

“After being at sea for 16 days, we were absolutely delighted to reach St. Lucia and discover we had won the race,” said Tom Sperrey. “The fuel cell performed incredibly well, even under the hostile conditions of the mid-Atlantic. It’s perfect for sailing as it provided us with a quiet, clean, compact and reliable source of power that lasted for the whole trip. There isn’t much equipment on a boat that doesn’t require maintenance, but we didn’t have to worry about the fuel cell. Using the fuel cell for the communications equipment meant that we didn’t have to keep powering up the boat’s diesel engine to re-charge the batteries.”

About UPS Systems plc

UPS Systems plc (upssystems.co.uk) is the UK’s largest independent supplier of standby power solutions. Through its independent position, allied to close working relationships with the world’s leading manufacturers, the company is uniquely able to offer impartial technical advice on the widest range of standby power solutions. An authority on fuel cell technology, UPS Systems implemented the UK’s first two hydrogen fuel cells providing ac standby power, and is currently working on projects where the technology will be used for the supply of backup or prime power to utilities, telecommunications, remote telemetry, portable signage and renewable energy applications.

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Nippon Shokubai Co. (4114) is preparing to start mass production this spring of electrolytes used in next-generation fuel cells. read full article… This article is available to Nikkei.com subscribers only. Full Article at Nikkei

Overview

Site: Dixons Creek, Victoria, Australia

Application: Backup power for telecom exchange

Product: ElectraGen™ XTi System

Configuration: 5 kW, 48 Vdc

Fuel: HydroPlus (methanol/water) (220 liter tank)

Customer Motivations: Reduced carbon emission, virtually maintenance-free and energy efficient

Background

Telstra is Australia’s leading telecommunications company providing over 9.2 million fixed line services and 9.7 million mobile services with 5.2 million 3G customers. Telstra’s major strength is providing integrated telecommunications services in a vast geographical coverage with an extensive network infrastructure. Making certain that its cell towers operate reliably with no disruption in service is a critical concern. Telstra decided to test alternative power sources and use fuel cells to provide clean and reliable extended backup power reducing the number of battery strings and diesel generators at its sites.

Challenge

Telstra’s base station sites are in remote locations that contain critical telecommunications equipment requiring backup power with over 8 hours of autonomy. Their standard backup power supply consists of 5 strings of batteries and a diesel powered generator in case of extended power failure. However, both can be unreliable and are costly to maintain. Telstra needed to find a solution that reduced carbon emissions and provided reliable extended run backup power for its remote sites.

Solution

In July 2009, Telstra chose IdaTech’s ElectraGen™ XTi System from KD Fisher, IdaTech’s international distribution partner in Australia. The initial testing of the ElectraGen™ XTi system was performed in Melbourne over several days. After successfully completing extensive technical field test requirements, the unit was then moved to Dixons Creek, Victoria, for installation.

IdaTech’s ElectraGen™ XTi fuel cell system was developed specifically to provide critical backup power for the telecom market. The ElectraGen™ XTi system includes a fuel processor that converts methanol and water liquid fuel into hydrogen gas to power the unit. By generating its own hydrogen as needed, the requirement for delivery and storage of bottled hydrogen is eliminated. The ElectraGen™ XTi fuel cell is ideal for extended run backup power in Australia’s remote geographic location, where fuel delivery is difficult and expensive.

Results

Within 24 hours of the installation at the test site, a power failure occurred and the fuel cell system responded, generating 1.5 hours of backup power. The test site supports a 3G node, fiber optics transmission and telephony services. Telstra recently reported that the ElectraGen™ XTi system has been working flawlessly since its site installation.

R ²Coupler Isolation Products Being Used for Electric Power Generation Automaker’s Premacy ‘Green Cars’

Avago Technologies (Nasdaq: AVGO), a leading supplier of analog interface components for communications, industrial and consumer applications, today announced that Yaskawa Electric Corporation has selected two of its latest R ²Coupler™ isolation products for use in the futuristic Mazda Premacy hydrogen/gas powered hybrid vehicle. Yaskawa, which makes the electronic motor inverter system for the Premacy, is using Avago’s ACPL-782T automotive grade isolation amplifier and ACPL-312T gate drive optocoupler in its electronic motors.

Mazda’s Premacy hybrid vehicle is an innovative concept car, which combines a hydrogen rotary engine and a hybrid system. The vehicle is a bi-fuel version of Mazda’s compact MPV Mazda5 and has a fuel efficient hybrid system that substantially increases its driving range and power over other hybrid vehicles in its class. The ACPL-312T provides isolated gate drive switching capability to drive the vehicle’s high powered insulated gate bipolar transistors/metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (IGBTs/MOSFETS) while the ACPL-782T isolation amplifier is used for motor inverter current/voltage monitoring and measurement.

“We’re delighted that Yaskawa Electric Corporation, which is one of Mazda’s key electronic motor system suppliers has chosen our R ²Coupler products for integration into their electronic motors,” said Tze Siong Chong, vice president and general manager, Isolation Products Division, Avago Technologies. “The adoption of these products for use in the electronic motor that is being used in the Premacy is validation that our automotive-grade isolation products meet the stringent reliability and reinforced capabilities that designers of automotive electronic motor inverter systems require.”

Avago’s ACPL-782T isolation amplifier is designed with a tight +/-2 percent gain tolerance which provides high accuracy measurement and stability over the time needed to accurately monitor motor current or voltage in high noise motor control environments. The ACPL-312T grade gate drive optocoupler provides up to 2.5 amps of peak output current to drive high powered IGBTs/MOSFETs used in electric motor inverters. Additionally, it has a low proprogation delay of 0.5 µs which allows the circuit designer to reduce switching dead time and improve inverter efficiency. Both of Avago’s new R ²Coupler products offer enhanced construction with superior thermal conductivity making them ideal for providing isolation in inverter and power management systems.

“We used Avago’s ACPL-782T, which is indispensable, for the inverter control DC voltage detector in automotive applications and have succeeded in developing an instantaneous voltage monitoring system,” said Kiyotaka Fuji, Inverter Division Engineering Department, Yaskawa Electronic Corporation. “The system is enabled to control the vehicle’s power and allow us to provide a high output inverter control according to our customer’s specifications. In automotive (EMC) immunity environments, the isolation amplifier produced by Avago Technologies has provided distinguished performance while satisfying the criteria of the test environment. Additionally, we used Avago’s ACPL-312T for the IGBT drive to shorten the dead time, thereby achieving highly efficient inverter control.”

The ACPL-782T and ACPL-312T are designed to operate over a wide operating temperature range and are qualified to AEC-Q100 Grade 1 automotive stress test requirements and manufactured under TS16949 automotive quality standards. Moreover, these R ²Couplers from Avago provide reinforced insulation and reliability that delivers safe signal isolation which is critical in automotive and high temperature industrial applications. More information on Avago’s R ²Coupler series can be found at the following URL: http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/optocouplers_plastic/plastic_automotive_optocoupler/.

About Avago Technologies

Avago Technologies is a leading supplier of analog interface components for communications, industrial and consumer applications. By leveraging its core competencies in III-V compound and silicon semiconductor design and processing, the company provides an extensive range of analog, mixed signal and optoelectronics components and subsystems to approximately 40,000 end customers. Backed by strong customer service support, the company’s products serve four diverse end markets: wireless communications, wired infrastructure, industrial and automotive electronics, and consumer and computing peripherals. Avago has a global employee presence and heritage of technical innovation dating back 40 years to its Hewlett-Packard roots. Information about Avago is available on the Web at www.avagotech.com

Singapore – CONSISTEL announced that it has won another contract to supply Spiro hydrogen fuel cells (“Spiro”) in Asia. The contract was awarded by PT. Telkomsel (Telekomunikasi Selular), a leading operator of cellular telecommunications services in Indonesia. The contract will cover the deployment of SPIRO hydrogen fuel cells within the states of Sumatra.

The award reaffirms the growing trend among the service providers in opting for green backup power solutions against service impacting issues. Today’s telecommunications wireless market demands quality-of-service; high reliability and availability, particularly in severe conditions. Hence, the ability for wireless networks to remain operational in adverse conditions is very critical. With an increase in service life and decrease in maintenance costs, Spiro hydrogen fuel cells provide the best cost-effective backup solution.

“Sustainable green and eco-friendly initiatives are gaining importance today with many service providers opting for alternative power sources like hydrogen fuel cells to maintain a reliable network and to minimize impact to the environment. “At Consistel, we see great potential in providing robust and green power solutions to our customers and we excited to have PT. Telkomsel, another Telecommunication service provider opting for alternative energy sources as part of the green movement.” said Masoud Bassiri, Chief Executive Officer of Consistel Pte. Ltd. “And, we believe that with the superior reliability of Spiro, service providers can now be closer to the reality of maintaining a stable and robust network for continuous delivery of service at all times.” added Masoud.

Building on decade-plus heritage in the In-building wireless industry and over 3,000 deployments worldwide, Consistel’s strength lies not only in its sterling reputation record in the In-building wireless industry but also in its ability in recognizing the importance in providing eco-friendly solutions that integrate with the natural environment. Spiro hydrogen fuel cell is a further affirmation of the Consistel’s commitment to furthering the environmental cause in the In-building wireless industry.

The project to provide a low-cost, ‘open source’ design for a fuel cell car that anyone can access and build has taken a step closer to reality with the publishing of the first engineering drawings online.

All of the designs for River Simple’s Hyrban will be published on the web, starting with the car’s rear suspension layout. The idea is to speed up development by gathering criticism and comment from users, which will also help to cut the costs of the technology.

Hyrban plans revealed