Fuel Cell Demonstration Program - Central and Remote Sites 2003

In an effort to promote clean energy projects and aid in the commercialization of new fuel cell technologies, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) initiated a Fuel Cell Demonstration Program in 1999 with six month deployments of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) non-commercial Beta model systems at partnering sites throughout Long Island. These projects facilitated significant developments in the technology, providing operating experience that allowed the manufacturer to produce fuel cells that were half the size of the Beta units and suitable for outdoor installations. In 2001, LIPA embarked on a large-scale effort to identify and develop measures that could improve the reliability and performance of future fuel cell technologies for electric utility applications and the concept to establish a fuel cell farm (Farm) of 75 units was developed. By the end of October of 2001, 75 Lorax 2.0 fuel cells had been installed at the West Babylon substation on Long Island, making it the first fuel cell demonstration of its kind and size anywhere in the world at the time. Designed to help LIPA study the feasibility of using fuel cells to operate in parallel with LIPA's electric grid system, the Farm operated 120 fuel cells over its lifetime of over 3 years including 3 generations of Plug Power fuel cells (Lorax 2.0, Lorax 3.0, Lorax 4.5). Of these 120 fuel cells, 25 Lorax 4.5 units operated under this Award from April 2003 to December 2004. In parallel with the operation of the Farm, LIPA recruited government, commercial, and residential customers to demonstrate fuel cells as on-site distributed generation. The deployment of the 20 Lorax 4.5 units for the Remote Sites phase of the project began in October 2004. To date, 10 fuel cells have completed their demonstrations while 10 fuel cells are currently being monitored at various customer sites throughout Long Island. As of June 30, 2006 the 45 fuel cells operating under this Award produced a total of 1,585,093 kWh. As fuel cell technology became more mature, performance improvements included increases in system efficiency and availability. Including equipment, design, fuel, maintenance, installation, and decommissioning the total project budget was approximately $3.7 million