Why the fuel cell industry will keep on growing

There may be a global recession in full swing, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at the fuel cell industry which continues to grow.

Its revenues in 2010 exceeded $750million through markets such as uninterruptible power supplies, power for remote monitoring equipment, residential combined heat and power and portal power for military applications.

From this growth, Pike Research has found a number of meta-trends that it predicts will change the shape of the industry. These include long anticipated trends, such as company consolidation, and issues that have appeared over the last 12 months including the supply of rare earth metals.

The paper outlines the following trends and includes predictions about the fuel cell and hydrogen industry in 2011:

- The re-emergence of private equity firms.

- Tipping points in the stationary fuel cell sector.

- Consolidation in the fuel cell industry.

- An increase in the importance of hydrogen “juniors”.

- Hydrogen being used as an energy storage medium.

- Refocusing and rebranding.

- The increasing influence of Japan and Korea.

- Fuel cell vehicles growing in deployment.

- UAVs as a key market for micro fuel cells.

- Rare earth restrictions as a potential stumbling block.