Mar 9 2010
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $6.2 million in project funding to Ballard Power Systems under a four-year contract. Ballard Power Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Ballard Material Products, was awarded $4.1 million for research to improve the durability of fuel cells. In addition, U.S. technology organizations that carry out fuel cell research with DOE funds will engage Ballard as sub-contractor.
Dr. Rod Borup, Fuel Cell Program Manager, Institute for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the institute is pleased to be collaborating with Ballard Power Systems, a technology leader. The research is important to support the goal of DOE for rapid commercialization of the fuel cell technology. The partnership with Ballard seeks to improve the durability of fuel cells as well to reduce the technology cost. These two factors are very important for speedy acceptance of fuel systems in the market.
More than 80% of the funds from DOE have been allocated for fuel cell research projects, while the balance of funds is meant for water management modeling. The other U.S technology organizations that Ballard will be partnering apart from Los Alamos National Laboratory include Sandia National Laboratory, University of New Mexico, Michigan Technical University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Source: www.ballard.com