Jan 23 2010
U.S. Army CECOM has awarded a $1.85 million contract to Protonex Technology Corporation under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to develop and supply advanced portable battery charger/APU fuel cell systems. Protonex Technology, a leading developer of advanced fuel systems, had expected this contract award and announced that in its results.
The contract also includes three option phases, which if granted, could lead to increase in the value of the contract to $6.4 million including supply of more than 100 production units. Protonex will be developing the advanced system from its current M250-CX platform as per phase one program of the five-month contract. The new system to be developed will be more rugged for field use, have increased power output, reduced overall weight and size, will have the capability for integrating more batteries and charging. U.S. Army will be testing the portable battery charger/APU systems from Protonex at the conclusion of the phase one program.
The U.S. Army will be provided with fuel efficient, lightweight and quiet power systems with the development of advanced power systems based on the current M250-CX platform. The next-generation system can be used as either auxiliary power units or as portable field battery chargers. By using the advanced power systems, the U.S. Army will be able to deploy rechargeable batteries in the field, thus enabling the army to save hundreds of millions of dollars per annum that are spent on the non-rechargeable batteries in the field.
Scott Pearson, Chief Executive of Protonex, said that with the award of this contract, the company’s developmental work on products based on M250 platform has been supported till date with contracts from U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army totaling $9.6 million. He further added that the continued support from its military customers is demonstrated through this contract.
Source: www.protonex.com