Ballard Power Systems (TSX: BLD) announced yesterday an agreement to build a one-megawatt fuel cell generator that will generate heat and electricity at the Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. sales and marketing headquarters in Torrance, California.
The system will be powered by landfill biogas and, in addition to generating electricity, will provide heat to the Toyota facility
Michael Goldstein, Ballard's chief commercial officer said, “This agreement with Toyota for our CLEARgen system reaffirms the attractiveness of fuel cell power generation solutions for large-scale needs.”
The CLEARgen fuel cell system uses hydrogen produced from landfill gases. Using Ballard's proprietary proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, Toyota will be able to meet peak and mid-peak power needs using electricity from either the fuel cell system or the power grid.
The system will provide power to a number of buildings on a campus that includes Toyota’s and Lexus’ headquarter buildings, data centre building and employee fitness centre.
It is estimated the system will lower peak grid power consumption and reduce up to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
“The TMS headquarters campus houses 5,000 associates over 125 acres,” said Mark Yamauchi, TMS facilities operations manager. “The ability to offset peak electricity usage with an emission-free fuel cell system will create significant savings, while reducing our environmental footprint.”
Heat created by the fuel cell system will be tapped to provide hot water and space heating in the Toyota employee activity centre and in the Lexus headquarters building. Use of this heat will offset natural gas consumption on campus, thereby avoiding an additional 28 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
The system is expected to be commissioned in 2012, with project funding provided through California's self-generation incentive program.