Toyota Motor North America will build, install and evaluate a 1 MW proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power generation system at NREL’s Flatirons Campus in Arvada, Colorado.
The project will be in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
This 3-year, $6.5 million collaboration is funded in part by DOE’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and supports DOE’s H2@Scale vision for clean hydrogen across multiple applications and economic sectors.
The 1-MW fuel cell system integrates multiple Toyota fuel cell modules into a larger system to provide responsive stationary power.
Through a previous collaboration, NREL has demonstrated the use of an automotive fuel cell system to provide carbon-free power for a data center. This new system is at a significantly larger scale, generating about 15 times more power and capable of direct current and alternating current output.
Toyota is providing the fuel cell modules and is working with systems integrator, Telios, for the design, balance-of-plant and build of the system for delivery to NREL. Toyota has developed an integrated control system to manage operation of the fuel cell modules to maximize efficiency and system life. The system demonstrates a simplified design as a drop-in replacement to a conventional generator.