IFC grant to IST, Plug for project in South Africa

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 22 KB
• Volume: 2006
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1464-2859
• DOI: 10.1016/s1464-2859(06)70915-4

✦ Synopsis

IFC grant to IST, Plug for project in South Africa U S-based International Finance Corp- oration, the private sector arm of the World Bank, has awarded a $3m grant to IST Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Plug Power to install 400 fuel cells in rural and urban locations throughout South Africa over the next three years. The fuel cells will replace polluting and noisy technologies such as diesel generators.

Plug Power will produce the hydrogen-fueled 5 kWe GenCore ® fuel cell systems, which IST -Plug Power's distributor in South Africa [FCB, June 2004] -will import, distribute, install and maintain. When completed, the fuel cell installations will generate a total of 2 MWe. The electricity is targeted initially for use in backup and prime power applications in telecoms, IT and other industries. South Africa generates twothirds of Africa's electricity, and accounts for 40% of the continent's phones.

Plug Power has received a purchase order from IST for the first 80 of the expected 400 systems. The project, worth a total of $14m, represents the largest number of commercial fuel cells to be installed in a developing country to date. IST operates throughout southern Africa, and sees the supply of fuel cells in South Africa under the IFC program as 'a logical step to introducing fuel cells and perhaps other renewable energy projects' across the continent.