Burnaby’s Ballard Power Systems (Nasdaq:BLDP, TSX:BLD) expanded its alliance with an Indian subsidiary of a Thailand-based company Monday.
Ballard inked a memorandum of understanding with Delta Power Solutions (India) to expand fuel cell-powered backup power for data centres and other applications.
“There are numerous applications in which clean fuel cells can replace dirty lead-acid batteries and noisy, polluting diesel generators,” said Ballard CEO John Sheridan.
In July, the Ballard-controlled Dantherm Power inked a similar alliance with Delta to test Dantherm’s 2 and 5 kilowatt fuel cell systems at telecom customer locations. Delta clients include Indus, Bharti, Vodafone, Reliance and Idea Cellular. Delta made its initial purchase order earlier this month.
“This will be an important step toward delivery of a growing proportion of energy requirements in India by means of renewable power solutions,” said Delta managing director Dalip Sharma.
The signing was hosted by Indian energy minister Farooq Abdullah and B.C. Premier Christy Clark, who is leading a November 6-16 trade mission to China and India.
Ballard was a pioneer in hydrogen fuel cells, but pulled out of the automotive market in 2007 and sold the assets to Daimler and Ford. Ironically, an Indian company appears poised to drive the market that Ballard once led.
Indian giant Tata Motors’ unveiled fuel cell prototypes for buses in 2010. The company also provided four compressed natural gas-electric hybrid low-floor Starbuses to the Delhi Transportation Corporation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
India was ranked 132nd in the world on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey. Corruption has been a dominant story in the world’s second most populous country in 2011 as federal authorities have targeted organizers of the Commonwealth Games and politicians who got kickbacks in a $39 billion mobile phone licence scandal.
Bob Mackin