FuelCellsWorks

Southampton, UK, April 15, 2010: Bac2, the cleantech materials and fuel cell components company, is pleased to announce the first closing, on 31 March, of an issue of ordinary shares led by Fair-Lead Partners (London). This fundraising has secured commitments to date from new and existing investors to purchase ordinary shares at £110.00 per share, raising a total of £1 million. The funding round will remain open for further subscriptions until 10 May 2010.

The new funds will support the growing commercialization of Bac2’s fuel cell components business and the continuing development of new applications for its materials portfolio, which includes ElectroPhen®, a patented conductive polymer, and the CSR family of latent acid catalysts.

Bac2’s CEO, Mike Stannard, commented: “I am delighted to see both the continued support of our existing shareholders and enthusiastic commitment from new investors, which will allow Bac2 to continue its exciting commercial progress.”

Bac2 uses ElectroPhen in the manufacture of bi-polar plates. These are essential components for fuel cells, which produce clean energy with water vapour as their only waste product. Other potential applications for ElectroPhen include electrical heating and cooling, battery manufacturing, and radiation screening. CSR latent acid catalysts can be used to control polymerization in many processes including the manufacture of chipboard and laminates, glass-reinforced plastics, foam insulation, furniture, and abrasives.

The new fuel-cell powered electricity generator from BOC brings the benefits of hydrogen fuel to small-scale, energy-efficient technologies like lighting and cordless power tools, especially in locations where there is no access to grid-supplied electricity. Fuel-cells have been talked about for many years as a power source of the future: the new Hymera makes it available for today’s off-grid tasks.

Being hydrogen-powered, the only emissions are water or water vapour. Unlike conventional diesel or petrol generators, the Hymera unit from BOC, a member of The Linde Group, is efficient, clean and quiet – and has a much lower carbon footprint.

“It is not often that a new and practical alternative to conventional fuels becomes available but the Hymera does just that – it brings hydrogen power to today’s marketplace,” explained Stewart Dow, Packaged Energy Manager at BOC. “The portable power generator is ideal for high-tech, low energy technologies like LED floodlighting and for charging cordless tools on site. One unit can provide enough power to light up a tennis court – it has already been successfully tested for theatre lighting and also in the rail industry. Hymera is an environmentally-friendly alternative to diesel or petrol powered generators and marks the start of a new age in off-grid power generation.”

Hydrogen fuel cells are almost silent, so they can be used in situations where noise is an issue – for example in residential areas at night. Reducing the exposure of employees to continuous high levels of noise is also an increasingly important concern for many companies. Because they do not emit any potentially harmful substances (like carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide) the Hymera can be used in places where these types of emissions could become problematic.

Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity from the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen from the air. Like a battery, a fuel cell employs an electrochemical process that produces no sound and is very efficient. BOC have developed a lightweight hydrogen cylinder to go with the Hymera, keeping overall weight as low as possible.

The other great advantage of fuel cells is that they can be built to virtually any scale (from a few Watts to a several Megawatts) while still maintaining their very high efficiency. By contrast, petrol and diesel generators (the smallest is just under 1kW) have very poor efficiency at low and part load – less than 5% in some cases. So there is no benefit in using a high efficiency floodlight rather than a conventional tungsten floodlight with a petrol or diesel generator – the fuel consumption per hour would only be reduced by a small amount. While other technologies, such as lighting, computing and visual displays, have made big improvements in efficiency (i.e. they do the same work as before but use much less energy), petrol and diesel generators have not downsized to match the reduced power requirement of many loads.

BOC is working with a number of partners – including Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, UPS Systems, Arcola Energy and White Light Ltd – to make the product available for a wide range of applications.

Hungerford based UPS Systems plc has signed a unique partnership agreement with BOC, a member of the Linde Group, to distribute, their new low cost Hymera 150w hydrogen fuel cell generator in the UK.

Powered by an ultra-compact lightweight 300 bar hydrogen cylinder, the Hymera 150w hydrogen fuel cell generator is suitable for a wide range of remote prime power applications where access to mains power is not available or where other power sources such as fossil fuelled generators are either prohibited or simply unsuitable.

As Hymera produces absolutely no emissions apart from water vapour, it can provide clean, quiet electricity for a host of applications including high efficiency lighting, instrumentation, security cameras, power tools and many other low power consumption products.

UPS Systems and BOC have worked hard to bring to market what is arguably the UK’s first commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell generator package. There are no installation costs as the fuel cell is a direct ‘plug and play’ solution; users can simply connect a hydrogen cylinder, plug in the equipment and switch on the fuel cell.

“Our goal has been to drive down production costs to make hydrogen fuel cells more affordable for businesses across the UK and build some critical mass,” said Nick Rolf, Business Development Manager – Innovation at BOC. “With UPS Systems’ knowledge of the market and experience of commercial fuel cell deployment, we expect to see customers across several industries begin to replace traditional generators with Hymera.”

UPS Systems Managing Director Tom Sperrey commented: “We first showcased the Hymera 150w hydrogen fuel cell generator at the Grove Symposium in September where it received a great deal of interest. It is an important product because it has the potential to introduce a completely new audience to the benefits of fuel cell technology, which will help to further overcome the barriers to widespread adoption.”

The fuel cell has an estimated retail price of £1,995 ex. VAT and is available only from UPS Systems and BOC.