Basically, a fuel cell is a high efficient device that generates Direct Current electricity from a hydrogen rich gas through an electrochemical reaction. If you go to our Fuel Cell Fact Sheets section you will find a fact sheet with further information about your question.
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited uses an optimised blend of materials specially designed for different parts of the fuel cells. These comprise of: Electrolyte - Yttria doped Zirconia (YSZ), Cathode - complex oxides including Lanthanum-Strontium-Manganese-oxide and for the Anode - Nickel-Zirconia (YSZ)-cermet. For more information on the construction of a fuel cell visit our Info Centre.
Right now, we have designed our solid oxide fuel cell system to use natural gas. It is also possible to re-design the fuel cell system to use other fuel sources such as hydrogen, LPG, bio-gas, coal gas, ethanol, methane and other hydrocarbon fuels.
We are currently producing highly sophisticated ‘pre-commercial' and prototype units for testing and development. This means that the costs per unit are significantly higher than traditional mass-produced generators/boilers. We have built a large scale manufacturing plant in Germany, to scale up production and significantly reduce unit costs. The factory was officially opened in October 2009. We plan to have BlueGen co-generation products available for selected customers and demonstration projects from early 2010. Ceramic Fuel Cells will offer BlueGen through a network of sales and installation partners.
We are focused on developing a 1-2kW micro-combined Heat & Power (CHP) unit and BlueGen co-generation units as our first products to 'go to market', initially targeting Europe. From 2006-2009 we deployed demonstration CHP units in field trials in Australia, New Zealand and Germany, France and the United Kingdom. At the moment, we do not have demonstration units available to the general public. We plan to have BlueGen units available to selected customers from early 2010.
Our strategy is to work with appliance companies who would manufacture end user products in volume. Naturally we're working hard to bring this forward as much as we can. We have built a large scale manufacturing plant in Germany, which was officially opened in October 2009. This factory will supply our fuel cell modules to our appliance partners, for integration into commercial CHP products. We will also have our BlueGen products available from early 2010. In the meantime we will continue to make fuel cell modules and systems at our pilot production facility in Melbourne, Australia.
If you'd like to be kept up to date with what we're doing you're welcome to visit our Announcements section and 'register' to receive our announcements by email (You don't need to be an investor to join.)
We are listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under CFU. We are also listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market also under the code CFU. Visit www.asx.com.au or www.londonstockexchange.com for more information.
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited has signed product development agreements with leading European utility customers and appliance partners in Europe and Japan to deploy micro-CHP units using CFCL's SOFC technology. These agreements are a significant achievement for the Company, validating the Company's commercialisation strategy and allowing the Company to move from field trials into product development, deployment and sales. Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited has customers and partners in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Japan. More details about these partners is available under our 'Partners' section.
In Australia, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with VicUrban, the Victorian Government's land development agency. VicUrban will install several BlueGen units in high profile demonstration sites from late 2009.
