Fuel cell products, despite considerable development, have yet to be commercially realized. However, developments in recent years have brought a range of new fuel cell technologies to the brink of commercialization. Fuel cells could help to revolutionize power generation and may eventually provide electrical power for an extremely wide range of applications including utility power plants distributed generation, domestic combined heat and power units, and portable and automotive applications.

‘Leading Fuel Cell Technologies’ is a report published by Business Insights that analyzes the future of fuel cell technologies and their usage in stationary power generation. This report looks at each of the leading fuel cell technologies in terms of their operational characteristics, costs, efficiency and future prospects and provides an analysis of comparative costs with existing power generation technologies. The report also provides an assessment of the comercialization potential of fuel cells, in addition to key installation data and emerging fuel cell trials.

Key Findings

Costs for stationary fuel cell applications still vary widely – from $2,500/kW for some technologies to more than $40,000/kW for direct methanol fuel cells.

Although fuel cell costs are still uncompetitive, the sector is still highly mature – revenues from commercial fuel cell companies were still under $500m 3 years ago although other estimates place the overall market size much higher.

Commercial fuel cell installations have risen sharply – more capacity has been installed in the past 3 years than in the 10 years prior to that.

Based on generation costs, fuel cells are becoming competitive with onshore wind and may be as little as 17% more expensive in some cases per MWh.

Fuel cell installations under 10kW have also grown quickly – at a CAGR of almost 50% between 2001 and 2007.

Use this report to...
• Identify the leading fuel cell technologies, their development status and application with this report’s in–depth analysis of the 6 leading fuel cell technologies:

-Phosphoric acid fuel cells
-Proton exchange membrane fuel cells
-Molten carbonate fuel cells
-Solid oxide fuel cells
-Alkaline fuel cells
-Direct methanol fuel cells

• Compare the economic competitiveness of the different fuel cell technologies with this report’s comparative analysis of costs against existing power generation technologies.

• Assess the long term potential of fuel cells in the stationary power market based on this report’s assessment of the future prospects of fuel cells, their commercialization prospects, key installation data and emerging fuel cell trials.

Explore issues including...

Cost competitiveness. Fuel cells are becoming more cost competitive, although costs for many of the technologies remain estimates and the true challenge for commercialization of fuel cells remains to be fully understood.

Technological immaturity. Fuel cells are still a highly immature technology, with relatively low, but growing levels of installation – and it is clear that a key feature of their uptake will be an ability to achieve scale.

The hydrogen economy. In the uncertain event that a hydrogen economy does develop, then the fuel cell is likely to become one of the primary means of exploiting hydrogen. The availability of hydrogen without the need for reforming would have a significant effect on the economics of several types of fuel cell.

Discover...

• What are the leading fuel cell technologies?
• Which technology is suited to which application?
• What are the operational parameters for each technology?
• How do the economics of fuel cell technologies compare against one another and against existing power generation technologies?
• What is the growth profile for large and small fuel cell installations?
• What are the future prospects for fuel cell commercialization?