ARPA-E Awards $33 Million for Grid-Tied Fuel Cells : Greentech Media

ARPA-E Awards $33 Million for Grid-Tied Fuel Cells : Greentech Media

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“It could be an additional piece in the evolving grid,” Martin said of
fuel cell breakthroughs. The REBELS program joins ARPA-E’s GENI, GRIDS
and ADEPT programs that are also funding technologies that could
contribute to a more efficient, distributed grid.


The biggest winner in this round of REBELS funding was Redox Power Systems,
which received $5 million for its low-temperature solid oxide fuel
cell. Last year, Redox told Greentech Media that it could push the cost
of fuel cells down to as little as $800 per kilowatt at volume
production, less than one-tenth the cost per kilowatt of Bloom’s fuel
cells. Redox will use the ARPA-E funding to develop a mid-temperature
fuel cell operating at 400°C that uses a novel material configuration
which will increase the power density while still allowing for
stability.
SAFCell, a spinout from the California Institute of Technology,
received the second-largest award: $3.7 million. It is developing a
solid acid fuel cell that will operate at 250°C and uses virtually no
precious metals. Instead, it uses carbon nanotubes as the basis for its
catalysts.
Among the three winners for liquid-fuel producing fuel cells, FuelCell Energy
received $3.5 million to convert methane to methanol. FuelCell, which
had its IPO in 1992, focuses on megawatt-sized fuel cells. As of last
year, it told Greentech Media that it was selling its current units,
which use molten carbonate technology, for about $3,000 per kilowatt,
excluding installation.
Another Connecticut-based company, United Technologies Research Center,
received $3.2 million for a residential fuel cell that will combine a
building’s heating and power systems.

Other winners include:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory – Oak Ridge, TN - Nanocomposite Electrodes for a Solid Acid Fuel Cell Stack - $2,750,000

Colorado School of Mines – Golden, CO - Fuel-Flexible Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cell Stack - $1,000,000


Georgia Tech Research Corporation – Atlanta, GA - Fuel Cell Tailored for Efficient Utilization of Methane - $1,000,000

Palo Alto Research Center – Palo Alto, CA - Reformerless Fuel Cell - $1,500,000

SiEnergy Systems – Cambridge, MA - Hybrid Fuel Cell-Battery Electrochemical System - $2,650,000


The University of California Los Angeles – Los Angeles, CA - Fuel Cells with Dynamic Response Capability - $1,000,000

The University of South Carolina – Columbia, SC - Bi-functional Ceramic Fuel Cell Energy System - $3,200,000

Argonne National Laboratory – Argonne, IL - Hybrid Fuel Cell System for
Converting Natural Gas to Electricity and Liquid Fuels - $2,000,000

Materials & Systems Research, Inc. – Salt Lake City, UT -
Electrogenerative Cells for Flexible Cogeneration of Power and Liquid
Fuel - $2,800,000

For more on the REBELS projects, click here.

In its first five years, ARPA-E has funded close to 400 projects
with an aggregate award total of nearly $1 billion. Martin said the
focus for the first few years was on development and deployment of
projects. Now, strategic partners are brought in at the very beginning
of the process, rather than along the way. For the REBELS program, that
could mean potential customers such as the military, utilities, and
incumbent materials companies, such as BSF or Dow.