The agreement will see the companies develop and deploy a prototype fuel cell combined heat and power unit in the UK. During the collaboration, CFCL will supply a NetGen+ unit for operation with a supplementary boiler and a specially designed thermal store to produce an ‘Alpha' prototype which will subsequently be deployed in a field trial. The current project schedule is for the NetGen+ unit to be delivered by December 2007 and the Alpha unit to be developed in Q2 2008.
E.ON is contributing to the product development costs and retains a first option to purchase future CFCL micro CHP units for the British market. CFCL is planning to announce its appliance partner responsible for manufacturing the units in due course.
Bob Taylor, managing director of Energy Wholesale and Technology at E.ON UK, said: “We're keen to get the units out into homes to see exactly what they can do. While we're still at a trial stage, we believe that CFCL's technology is the most advanced offer in the market.”
The partners have also agreed to discuss further co-operation in the subsequent development and deployment of ‘Beta' CHP units (comprising CFCL's fuel cell module fully integrated with a condensing boiler) as well as commercial targets for fuel cell CHP units for the UK residential market.
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