Company type | Former Subsidiary of UTC |
---|---|
Industry | Fuel cell |
Founded | 1958 (under Pratt & Whitney for NASA's Apollo missions) |
Headquarters | South Windsor, Connecticut |
UTC Power was a fuel cell company based in South Windsor, Connecticut. It was part of United Technologies Corporation; it was purchased by ClearEdge Power in February 2013. The company specialized in fuel cells for buildings, [1] buses [2] and automobiles. [3] It has also developed fuel cells for space [4] and submarine applications in the past.
UTC Power began as a division of Pratt & Whitney in 1958. In 1966, the company supplied fuel cells to NASA for the Apollo project space missions, to supply electric power and drinking water for the astronauts on board and, later, for the Space Shuttle missions until 2010. In 1985, the company became a wholly owned subsidiary of UTC under the name International Fuel Cells. It was later renamed UTC Fuel Cells in 2001, [5] and became UTC Power in 2004. [6]
In the early 1990s, UTC Power commercialized a large, stationary fuel cell for use as a cogeneration power plant. The company has expanded into the broader fuel cell industry over the last 10 years, developing fuel cells for automobiles and buses.
In February 2013, UTC Power was sold to ClearEdge Power. [7] [8]
UTC Power’s stationary phosphoric acid fuel cell product is the PureCell Model 400 System. [9] This stationary fuel cell system provides 400 kilowatts of electricity and 1.7 million Btu/hour of heat. The PureCell System is considered a good match for combined heat and power applications including supermarkets, hospitals, hotels and educational institutions. [10] The UTC Power fuel cell system uses natural gas which is converted in a "catalytic reformer" into hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water. The hydrogen is used to run the four fuel cell stacks to produce electricity and the power plant then converts the exhaust heat into cooling and heating, turning potential waste into usable energy. The product has a 10-year cell stack durability and 20-year product life.
UTC Power has designed, manufactured and installed more than 300 stationary fuel cells in 19 countries on six continents. The fleet has exceeded 9.4 million hours of field operation and has generated more than 1.6 billion kWh of energy, enough to power nearly 140,000 homes for an entire year. PureCell Systems are operating at Whole Foods Markets in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts; [11] Price Chopper stores in New York, [12] a Coca-Cola Refreshments bottling facility in New York [13] and another in Connecticut, [14] a powerplant in South Korea, [15] and at other sites around the world.
The PureMotion Model 120 System was UTC Power’s zero-emission proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell for transit buses. [16] UTC Power’s PureMotion Model 120 system is powering a fleet of transit buses in Connecticut and California.
On Friday, March 16, 2012, UTC Power participated in an event hosted by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to highlight U.S. Senate passage of federal surface transportation legislation. [17] The event was held at CT Transit facilities in Hartford and included representatives from the Connecticut Department of Transportation. [18] On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a two-year reauthorization of federal highway, transit and safety programs to fund highway and transit improvements nationwide. The legislation included a Clean Fuels Grant Program to prioritize funding for transit agencies to purchase zero emission passenger buses. [19]
UTC Power developed and manufactured PEM fuel cells for automobiles. [20] The company worked with BMW, Hyundai and Nissan as well as the U.S. Department of Energy on development and demonstration programs.
The UTC Power Control Center monitored the global fleet of PureCell systems 24/7 and often detected potential problems before they could impact successful operation of the system, ensuring maximum uptime for customers. Each PureCell included an internet-based communication system, called the Remote Monitoring System (RMS). The RMS provided the Control Center with remote access to fuel cell operating data and allowed limited control, including start-up, power output kW set point and shut-down commands. The fuel cell could independently “call out” to alert technicians of out-of-limit parameters, status, and need for maintenance. The RMS also supplied the system owner with website access to view the fuel cell’s operating status.
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel and an oxidizing agent into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from substances that are already present in the battery. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.
Eastern Connecticut State University is a public university in Willimantic, Connecticut. Founded in 1889, it is the second-oldest campus in the Connecticut State University System and third-oldest public university in the state. Eastern is located on Windham Street in Willimantic, Connecticut, on 182 acres (0.74 km2) 30 minutes from Hartford, lying midway between New York City and Boston. Although the majority of courses are held on the main campus, select classes take place at Manchester Community College, Capital Community College, and a satellite center in Groton.
Phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC) are a type of fuel cell that uses liquid phosphoric acid as an electrolyte. They were the first fuel cells to be commercialized. Developed in the mid-1960s and field-tested since the 1970s, they have improved significantly in stability, performance, and cost. Such characteristics have made the PAFC a good candidate for early stationary applications.
A fuel cell vehicle (FCV) or fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) is an electric vehicle that uses a fuel cell, sometimes in combination with a small battery or supercapacitor, to power its onboard electric motor. Fuel cells in vehicles generate electricity generally using oxygen from the air and compressed hydrogen. Most fuel cell vehicles are classified as zero-emissions vehicles. As compared with internal combustion vehicles, hydrogen vehicles centralize pollutants at the site of the hydrogen production, where hydrogen is typically derived from reformed natural gas. Transporting and storing hydrogen may also create pollutants. Fuel cells have been used in various kinds of vehicles including forklifts, especially in indoor applications where their clean emissions are important to air quality, and in space applications. Fuel cells are being developed and tested in trucks, buses, boats, ships, motorcycles and bicycles, among other kinds of vehicles.
The MTA Regional Bus Operations bus fleet is a fleet of buses in fixed-route service in New York City under the "MTA New York City Bus" and "MTA Bus" brands, both of which operate local, limited, express and Select Bus Service routes.
The California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) is a public-private partnership to promote hydrogen vehicles (including cars and buses) in California. It is notable as one of the first initiatives for that purpose undertaken in the United States. The challenge is which come first, hydrogen cars or filling stations.
South Windsor High School is located in South Windsor, Connecticut. It currently serves grades 9-12 with approximately 1,364 students and a 13:1 student-teacher ratio. It is the only high school in South Windsor, but also admits students from Hartford through the Open Choice Program. The school offers a variety of courses spanning departments such as mathematics, science, social studies, language arts, foreign languages, music, art, and technology. The school also offers over 80 options for extracurricular activities and 30 options for afterschool athletics.
CT Transit is a public transportation bus system serving many metropolitan areas and their surrounding suburbs in the state of Connecticut. CT Transit is a division of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, although it contracts a number of private companies for most of its operations. CT Transit began operations in 1976 as Connecticut Transit after the Connecticut DOT's acquisition of the Connecticut Company. Initially serving only the Hartford, New Haven, and Stamford areas, CT Transit's service now extends throughout much of Connecticut. CT Transit provides local "city bus" service in Bristol, Hartford, Meriden, New Britain, New Haven, Stamford, Wallingford and Waterbury in addition to a number of express routes connecting to outlying suburbs and other regions of the state.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation is responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports and waterways in Connecticut.
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Proterra Inc. was an American electric vehicle and powertrain manufacturer based in Burlingame, California. The company designed and manufactured battery electric transit buses, powertrain systems for other heavy-duty vehicle builders and charging systems for fleets of heavy-duty vehicles.
ClearEdge Power, Inc. was a fuel cell manufacturer focusing on the stationary fuel cell. It was headquartered in South Windsor, Connecticut, U.S. The company employed 225 people as of August 2011. It closed its operations in Connecticut in April 2014, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2014. The company's assets were purchased out of bankruptcy by Doosan Fuel Cell America, Inc.
The principle of a fuel cell was discovered by Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838, and the first fuel cell was constructed by Sir William Robert Grove in 1839. The fuel cells made at this time were most similar to today's phosphoric acid fuel cells. Most hydrogen fuel cells today are of the proton exchange membrane (PEM) type. A PEM converts the chemical energy released during the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen into electrical energy. The Hydrogen Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1990 and Energy Policy Act of 1992 were the first national legislative articles that called for large-scale hydrogen demonstration, development, and research programs. A five-year program was conducted that investigated the production of hydrogen from renewable energy sources and the feasibility of existing natural gas pipelines to carry hydrogen. It also called for the research into hydrogen storage systems for electric vehicles and the development of fuel cells suitable to power an electric motor vehicle.
The PureCell System is a stationary phosphoric acid fuel cell designed, manufactured and marketed by Doosan Fuel Cell America of South Windsor, Connecticut. Designed for distributed generation and micro combined heat and power applications, it is intended for industrial buildings such as hotels, hospitals, data centers, supermarkets, and educational institutions. PureCell System says that its users will see lower energy costs, reduced emissions, 95% system efficiency, 10-year cell stack durability and 20-year product life.
FuelCell Energy, Inc. is a publicly traded fuel cell company, headquartered in Danbury, Connecticut. It designs, manufactures, operates and services Direct Fuel Cell power plants.
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