Portable Power Applications

Summary

This market has traditionally been met by small portable generators and batteries. For this application, units tend to be either Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC) or Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells. PEM fuel cells in this application tend to use reforming technologies which enable them to take advantage of the existing fuelling infrastructure. Other PEM fuel cell systems use either compressed hydrogen storage or metal hydrides. PEM FC have the highest power density of all the fuel cells so are very applicable to portable applications as it makes the system sizes smaller. DMFC have quite low energy density so the advantage of being able to use methanol directly without having to pass it through a reformer, is countered by currently the larger units producing less than 100 watts. There are also a number of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) systems that utilise fuels with an established infrastructure such as propane.

Applications

Generators
Luxury Recreational Vehicle
Luxury Boat
Golf Carts
Power Tools
Buoys/Beacons/Locators/ GPS
Chem / Bio Point Sensors
Rechargers for Police and fire radios
Medical Devices (ie. Defibrillator)
Remote Meteorological (Weather) Sensors
Seismic Instrumentation
Data Logger
Large Computer Systems
Telecommunication Electronic systems
Oil/Gas Pipeline Instrumentation
Wastewater Treatment Instrumentation
Rail Track Monitoring
Airstrip Lighting
Transit Signaling
Class-8 trucks
Off-Road Vehicles
Pick-up Trucks
Class A&C Recreational Vehicle
Communications
- ISP base stations
- Regeneration sites
- Cellular nodes
- Mobile & Stationary Uplink facilities
- Tower/antenna sites