Power to the People

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Plug Power's progress has impressed some deep pockets. Last February the company launched, along with General Electric Power Systems, a joint venture company to handle worldwide sales and distribution. And in April, Plug Power attracted a $7.5 million investment from the southern California Gas Company, the nation's largest natural gas distributor. It is the kind of support that has enabled Plug Power to break ground on a 55,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, bringing the company a giant step closer toward mass production.

But while Plug Power may be ahead by a nose, it's got competition in the field.

The Woburn, Massachusetts—based American Fuel Cell Corporation aims to hit the consumer market with a 3kW residential fuel cell system in 2001. Already, the company has successfully demonstrated its product at a home in Germany, and over the next year, it plans to build some 20 more prototype "alpha" units, followed by 600 "beta," or second-generation units, to be tested at sites both in the U.S. and abroad.

Energy Partners of West Palm Beach, Florida, and its subsidiary, NuPower—which holds the distinction of having been the first U.S. company to run a PEM fuel cell on hydrogen produced from natural gas—is also planning systems for residential use. And Northwest Power Systems of Bend, Oregon, has for the past year been testing and demonstrating a 5kW system at sites throughout the Northwest.

Also in the running is Avista Labs of Spokane, Washington, which is experimenting with a unique, modular design that will permit fuel cells to be added or removed from a stack while the system continues to operate.

All of these companies are banking on a ready and eager market. Plug Power spokesman John Mousaw points to four key arenas where fuel cell systems will beat out conventional electrical power: reliability, efficiency, ecology and economy. We'll add one more: autonomy.

Power You Can Count On

The story has become the stuff of legend in the offices and laboratories of Plug Power. As Mousaw tells it, about a year ago, a Bennington, Vermont, airy farmer pulled into Plug Power's parking lot, hopped out of his pickup truck, walked into the company's reception area and plopped a paper bag down on the counter. "I'm here to buy a fuel cell," the man declared, prompting the receptionist to inform him that they weren't yet for sale, that they were still in the testing and development stage. "You don't understand, I need a fuel cell," the man reportedly told her, explaining that he lived at the very end of the distribution lines in an area prone to power outages and that, because he is the last customer on the line, he's usually the last one back up-and-running—sometimes going without power for days or even weeks. He then announced that the bag contained $10,000 in cash, the price he was willing to pay for the reliable power he just wasn't getting from the grid.

While the farmer ultimately drove away with the bag full and the back of his truck empty—forced to wait till 2001 with the rest of us—the episode does illustrate the lengths to which some folks will go to keep the lights on.

Residential fuel cell systems will offer immunity to blackouts. They will also provide a "clean" power, far less prone to the disruptive and often destructive surges associated with grid power. "A lot of the surges that you see with traditional power happen because everyone is hooked together," Acker explains. "One person rocks the boat down the street, you feel the ripples at your house."

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