Ceres achieves key milestones on British Gas contract

Ceres Power has announced today its recent progress on its CHP technology, achievements on the residential CHP contract with British Gas and providing a roadmap of its development programme through to mass market roll-out.

Since the demonstration of the Company’s CHP unit in September 2007, the core fuel
cell module has achieved its size and weight reduction targets. In addition, Ceres says it has completed the Alpha design phase of an integrated wall-mountable CHP unit with British Gas, a design which is said to meet the go-to-market specification and satisfies the requirements for mass market uptake including installation, service and maintenance in a UK home.

The performance of the core fuel cell technology has been independently confirmed by
AEA Energy and Environment (part of AEA Technology plc), which states that: “On the
basis of the activities and testing witnessed and the data presented, we can confirm the
following statements:
• Ceres Power has developed and demonstrated a fuel processing capability to
efficiently steam reform natural gas in its compact fuel processor unit.
• Ceres Power has achieved a target heat to power ratio of 1:1 from its stack
technology operating on reformed natural gas.
• The Ceres Power CHP system Alpha target efficiency can be achieved from its
Alpha design”

Ceres Power is confident that it can meet the targets and timescale for mass market  rollout of the CHP product in 2011 using scalable volume manufacturing processes and
volume supply chain partners. The Company expects to have built and tested the Alpha
CHP product in Q4 2008 and Q1 2009 respectively, secured a mother plant site in Q4
2008 and signed-off the Alpha deliverables as trigger for payment of £2m from British
Gas during Q2 2009.

Peter Bance, Chief Executive Officer of Ceres Power, commented: “We are delighted to have achieved this important milestone and now have a CHP design which satisfies the requirements for mass market uptake. The performance of the core technology has been independently confirmed by AEA Energy & Environment and we have today laid out a clear roadmap to the commercial launch of our residential CHP product.”

Gearoid Lane, Director of British Gas New Energy, commented: “We are pleased with the recent progress under our new contract with Ceres Power. The programme is on track to deliver as planned and we are pleased to have contributed to the Alpha design that will satisfy mass market requirements.”

http://www.cerespower.com/

Source: Fuel Cell Today