Manufacturing, Cost, and Storage are Driving the Future Fuel Cell Market

    NEW YORK--May 28, 2001--The future of power generation may not be fashioned by refinements in wind, solar, coal, or nuclear energy, rather by the harnessing of a century-old technology.
    New advances in the fuel cell market has automobile manufacturers, power companies, governments, and markets sitting up and taking notice.
    According to two new reports by Technical Insights, a business unit of Frost & Sullivan (www.technical-insights.frost.com), "Fuel Cell Vehicles and Stationary and Portable Fuel Cells," this market is expected to generate $8 billion in 2005 with continued growth to $32 billion by 2010.
    The demand for reliable power is expected to spur the market for fuel cells, especially in areas of residential or industrial expansion on the fringes of a public grid. In the U.S., we see primary factors influencing fuel cell demand -- deregulation, increases in the cost of public power, and a need for a reliable power supply free of fossil fuels are chief among them. For vehicles, fuel cells promise to lower automotive emissions. For portables, fuel cells offer an alternative source of power for either industry or homes during a power outage.
    "Fuel cells are an efficient, nonpolluting power source that do not produce noise and have no moving parts," says Technical Insights' Research Director Leo O'Connor. "Compared with conventional fossil fuel power sources, fuel cells are exceptionally clean and efficient."
    The main issue involving fuel cell technology is the high cost of manufacturing the devices, which has largely limited them to a handful of exotic applications. Now falling prices and new technologies indicate that the fuel cell's time has finally arrived.