City of Riverside Demonstrates Environmental Leadership With Carbon Neutral On-Site FuelCell Energy Power Plant
May 14 2015 - 8:30AM
- Installation of a 1.4 megawatt combined heat and power fuel
cell plant at Riverside, California Wastewater Quality Control
Plant under a 20 year Power Purchase Agreement
- Converting waste biogas into renewable power in an efficient
manner that is carbon neutral and virtually absent of criteria
pollutants that cause smog and acid rain
FuelCell Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq:FCEL), a global leader in the design,
manufacture, operation and service of ultra‐clean, efficient and
reliable fuel cell power plants, announced the execution of a power
purchase agreement (PPA) with the City of Riverside, California to
install a 1.4 megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) Direct
FuelCell® (DFC®) power plant at the Riverside Regional Water
Quality Control Plant. The fuel cell power plant will convert
biogas from the wastewater treatment process into a continuous
supply of ultra-clean electricity to power the facility and two
electric vehicle charging stations, as well as provide thermal
energy for the water treatment process. The City of Riverside
is forecasting cost savings under the PPA, paying only for power
produced and advancing their sustainability
initiatives. FuelCell Energy will install, operate and
maintain the plant under a long-term service agreement for a term
of 20 years. The plant is expected to be operational in 2016.
"We are doing the right thing to ensure cleaner air for our
residents to breathe as we power critical facilities within a
framework that saves the city money," said Mayor Rusty Bailey of
the City of Riverside, California. "The opportunity to further
clean our air without significant investments in equipment, while
also obtaining cost savings, is a win-win."
"It is great to provide the City of Riverside with a power
generation solution that will deliver energy savings and energy
security in an environmentally-friendly way with no capital
investment required by the City," said Chip Bottone, Chief
Executive Officer, FuelCell Energy, Inc. "Our fuel cell power
plants are fuel flexible, utilizing on-site biogas for this
application, which is carbon-neutral due to the renewable nature of
the fuel source."
"The benefits of this fuel cell project are that we avoid the
flaring of the biogas, we remove future compliance obligations from
the South Coast Air Quality Management District regulations due to
the emission of only water vapor from the fuel cells, and we obtain
carbon credits from the California Air Resources Board," said
Ernest Marquez, Jr., Principal Engineer, City of
Riverside. "Fuel cells operating on renewable biogas solve a
number of our issues and concerns about permitting and
sustainability that are not easily or completely addressed by other
forms of on-site power generation."
The City will reduce its power costs and avoids the need to
directly invest in the power generation equipment by utilizing the
PPA structure and retaining FuelCell Energy to operate and maintain
the power plant. The City found that retrofitting existing
internal combustion biogas engines for compliance with clean air
permitting regulations, specifically South Coast Air Quality
Management District Rule 1110.2, was a more expensive
option. This illustrates a key advantage of DFC plants as they
eliminate clean air permitting challenges. The fuel cells
utilize chemistry rather than combustion to generate power,
resulting in the virtual absence of criteria pollutants including
nitrogen oxide (NOx) that causes smog, sulfur dioxide (SOx) that
contributes to acid rain, and particulate matter that can aggravate
asthma.
The Riverside wastewater treatment facility processes
approximately 40 million gallons of wastewater per day with
around-the-clock operations. The continuous power profile of
the fuel cells will support the treatment process, utilizing
approximately one half of the biogas generated to provide about
half of the power needs for the facility.
Direct FuelCell® (DFC®) power plants solve energy, environmental
and business-related power generation challenges by providing ultra
clean, efficient and reliable distributed power generation.
The fuel cells combine a fuel such as renewable biogas,
directed biogas or clean natural gas with oxygen from the ambient
air to efficiently produce ultra-clean electricity and usable high
quality heat via an electrochemical process. Virtually no
pollutants are emitted due to the absence of combustion, benefiting
public health. The high efficiency of the fuel cell power
generation process supports the affordability of the DFC solution,
and producing both electricity and heat from the same unit of fuel
further supports favorable economics while also promoting
sustainability.
About FuelCell Energy
Direct FuelCell® power plants are generating ultra-clean,
efficient and reliable power at more than 50 locations
worldwide. With more than 300 megawatts of power generation
capacity installed or in backlog, FuelCell Energy is a global
leader in providing ultra-clean baseload distributed generation to
utilities, industrial operations, universities, municipal water
treatment facilities, government installations and other customers
around the world. The Company's power plants have generated
more than 3 billion kilowatt hours of ultra-clean power using a
variety of fuels including renewable biogas from wastewater
treatment and food processing, as well as clean natural
gas. For additional information, please visit
www.fuelcellenergy.com, follow us on Twitter and view our videos on
YouTube.
Direct FuelCell, DFC, DFC/T, DFC-H2 and FuelCell Energy, Inc.
are all registered trademarks of FuelCell Energy, Inc. DFC-ERG
is a registered trademark jointly owned by Enbridge, Inc. and
FuelCell Energy, Inc.
CONTACT: FuelCell Energy, Inc.
Kurt Goddard, Vice President Investor Relations
203-830-7494
ir@fce.com
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