A Good Year for South Carolina’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Cluster

March 15, 2012 - PRLog -- March 6, 2012 - Columbia, SC – Global support and adoption of hydrogen and fuel cells is on the rise. More than 15,000 fuel cell units shipped worldwide in 2011 – resulting in a nearly 40% growth in Megawatts (MWs) of fuel cell power – and South Carolina’s hydrogen and fuel cell cluster is ready for the challenge.

In both 2010 and 2011, South Carolina was named a “Top 5 Fuel Cell State” according to Fuel Cells 2000’s annual report, State of the States: Fuel Cells in America. “With fuel cell forklift deployments, hydrogen infrastructure development and the SCHFCA leadership overseeing two successful Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition conferences, South Carolina is quickly becoming one of the industry’s leaders, not just in the U.S., but worldwide,” said Jennifer Gangi, Program Director for Fuel Cells 2000.

2011 was a quiet, but impactful year for the South Carolina hydrogen and fuel cell cluster. The U.S Department of Energy’s Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, visited Orangeburg and Columbia where he met with several key industry leaders of South Carolina. While in Columbia, Secretary Chu had positive remarks for the fuel cell industry and said he was “impressed” by what he had seen and noted that the industry has positively progressed -- the Secretary toured the University of South Carolina’s Innovista Research Center and was briefed about some of South Carolina’s hydrogen and fuel cell initiatives.

“State government support has been crucial in encouraging market entry of power generation systems, said Morry Markowitz, President and Executive Director of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA). South Carolina is one of the leaders among the states in our industry, with the South Carolina Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance activities driving the state forward in adopting fuel cell friendly policies and regulations.”

Most recently, the South Carolina Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance (SCHFCA) managed the highly successful 2011 Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition (FCS&E) in Orlando, Florida and is already gearing up for planning the 2012 FCS&E at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut November 5th-8th that is promising to be even better than this past year’s event. Also in 2011, the SCHFCA co-hosted the SC Renewable Energy Forum, supported the opening of the first multi-use hydrogen filling station in Aiken County, and partnered with BMW on their highly anticipated hydrogen landfill-gas project, which recently wrapped up the feasibility study portion of the project and is gearing up for the implementation phase. The SCHFCA also began working on a (South Carolina) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Economic Development Strategy project that will become a model for other states to follow and will be the first supply chain mapping effort to use nationally recognized NAICS codes. The project is on track for completion in June 2012.

South Carolina continues to be a strong leader in the international hydrogen fuel cell industry, especially with more and more companies and researchers relocating to the state and setting up shop with the likes of Proterra, LOGANEnergy SC, Trulite Inc., Savannah River National Laboratory, ARC: Hydrogen, Clemson University’s ICAR campus, SC State’s transportation research center, and the USC-Columbia Fuel Cell Collaborative. The SCHFCA continues to be active in the promotion of the hydrogen and fuel cell cluster within the state, with South Carolina continuing as a hub of activity that gets stronger and stronger with each year.

About the South Carolina Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance (SCHFCA)
http://schydrogen.org/

The South Carolina Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Alliance is a non-profit public-private partnership of academia, government and business that coordinates resources in South Carolina to advance the commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cells. For more information about the SCHFCA and becoming a member, please email info@schydrogen.org or call 803-545-0189.

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SCHFCA is a partnership of government, business, academia & citizens working to grow economies of local communities, the state & the nation to enable energy security & to limit our environmental footprint w/ the use of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.