John Lewis to evaluate AFC Energy fuel cell, demo in supermarket
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 71 KB
- Volume
- 2011
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1464-2859
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✦ Synopsis
John Lewis to evaluate AFC Energy fuel cell, demo in supermarket I n the UK, AFC Energy has signed a com- mercial memorandum of understanding with the John Lewis Partnership, to evaluate the economic potential of using its alkaline fuel cell to generate low-carbon electricity for Waitrose supermarkets and John Lewis retail stores.
Following successful evaluation, the John Lewis Partnership intends to order and demonstrate AFC Energy's low-cost alkaline fuel cell system as part of an integrated low-carbon energy generation project at a Waitrose store.
The employee-owned John Lewis Partnership has pledged to deliver an absolute reduction of 15% in its carbon emissions by the end of its 2020/21 trading year, while doubling revenue. This commitment is supported by a range of initiatives and targets covering operational emissions from energy, refrigeration and cooling, transport, waste, and water.
The inclusion of fuel cell technology will offer further renewable options to the John Lewis Partnership in support of its rollout of biomass for energy self-generation.
'The John Lewis Partnership has identified the potential of AFC Energy as a key partner in our efforts to reduce emissions as we continue to expand,' says its engineering manager, Toby Marlow. 'Their alkaline fuel cell gives us the opportunity to make clean electricity onsite: it is a revolutionary prospect with exciting potential.' AFC Energy's low-cost alkaline fuel cell has the capability to significantly reduce carbon emissions for commercial buildings. The company says that an integrated system powered from biomethane with carbon capture and storage (CCS) offers the ultimate prospect of 'carbon-negative' energy generation.
This small-scale application marks a departure from AFC Energy's recent, large-scale business development activities. Last fall the company joined forces with Powerfuel Power and B9 Coal, where the latter plans to install up to 300 MW of AFC Energy's fuel cell technology alongside the planned integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power station at Powerfuel's Hatfield site near Doncaster [FCB, November 2010]. And an AFC Energy system is in operation at Linc Energy's underground coal gasification (UCG) demonstration facility in Chinchilla, Australia, in a project to combine UCG and alkaline fuels cells as a breakthrough technology for cleaner coal [FCB, August 2010].