Jan 24 2011
Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) in a calculated move has invested around $1 million in ClearEdge Power, a fuel cell producing company based in Oregon. This investment will help the company to augment its renewable energy portfolio.
The company is engaged in funding demonstrative projects of fuel cell research since 1970 and has co-founded the National Fuel Cell Research Center located at UC Irvine. Fuel cells perform the conversion of natural gas power into electricity through an electrochemical process without releasing harmful gasses such as sulfur or nitrogen oxides into the air or leave discreet mass of solids.
The ClearEdge Power supplied ClearEdge5 combined heat and power (CHP) fuel cell technology reduces nearly 33% of the carbon discharges and keeps other known wastes such as ash, volatile organic compounds and particulates at a very minimum level. The fuel cells allow the business companies and homeowners to generate power without depending on the grid connectivity.
IntertechPira, a business intelligence providing company, in its recent report titled ‘The Future of Clean Technologies’ has mentioned that the use of fuel cell technology will increase by 10 times from its present value of $2 billion to $20 billion by the year 2019 while the other cleantech technologies such as wind, solar, biomass will grow more 250% during the period.
Source: http://www.socalgas.com/