Thirty-eight nationally recognized companies, including eleven Fortune 500 corporations, are collectively saving millions of dollars in electricity costs while reducing carbon emissions by tens of thousands of tons per year by using fuel cells, according to a new report by Fuel Cells 2000, a non-profit education and outreach organization. “The Business Case for Fuel Cells: Why Top Companies Are Purchasing Fuel Cells Today” profiles thirty-eight companies and corporations that are purchasing and deploying fuel cells in various capacities, highlighting the attractive benefits and savings of fuel cells over competing technologies.
The companies profiled in the report, cumulatively, have ordered, installed or deployed:
more than 1,000 fuel cell forklifts;
58 stationary fuel cell systems totaling almost 15 MW of power;
more than 600 fuel cell units at telecom sites.
The profiles were compiled from public information as well as conversations with the companies. These companies, including Walmart, Whole Foods, Coca-Cola, Staples, Sysco, and Fed Ex, to name a few, are implementing fuel cells at multiple retail or warehouse sites, or are deploying fuel cells in a variety of applications ranging from motive power (forklifts, cars and vans), to primary power (buildings), to combined heat and power (power plus heat, hot water and air conditioning). Fuel cells are also delivering high quality, computer grade power to data centers and supplying reliable back up power to critical communications equipment.
“Many people wrongly regard fuel cells as a future technology but they have been providing clean, reliable power at thousands of installations around the world for many years, and in some cases, such as the Bank of Omaha in Nebraska, for more than a decade” said Jennifer Gangi, program director, Fuel Cells 2000. “We hope this report opens the eyes of other businesses and potential end users, reporters, critics and policy makers to the potential emissions, time and cost savings fuel cells can provide today.”
Substantial savings are reported in electricity costs, labor and insurance costs, staff hours (for forklifts) as well as staggering reductions in carbon emissions. To download the full free report, please go to http://www.fuelcells.org/BusinessCaseforFuelCells.pdf.