ClearEdge Power extends product portfolio > Fuel Cell Dispatch

ClearEdge Power extends product portfolio

Fuel cell company ClearEdge Power announced Tuesday two new products that will extend the company's ability to compete with more traditional electricity sources.

Hillsboro-based ClearEdge, which closed a hefty $73.5 series E investment round in August, is adding back-up power capability for its fuel cell installations.

"Our Series E helped us accelerate development of our two product families," said Mike Upp, vice president of marketing for ClearEdge. "Now we're at a point where we can sign on some beta (customers)."

ClearEge will call its standard product line ClearEdge Plus, which is the company's standard fuel cell technology enhanced with battery storage to provide power when the grid goes down.

For customers requiring even more reliability, ClearEdge is also introducing the ClearEdge CP, which adds another layer of back-up power redundancy.

Upp said development of the new products was driven by customer demand and will allow ClearEdge to compete with other power sources on more than cost of power generated.

"The difference is, our concept is a lot greener than a generator and a backup UPS," Upp said. "It checks the box for the CTO who's been chartered with reducing the carbon footprint of their IT operation."

The ClearEdge Five-Plus will be priced at $56,000. The CP system will be priced at about $130,000 per platform.

ClearEdge takes a modular approach to fuel cell technology, clustering 5-killowatt fuel cells together to create systems of 25 kilowatts or even more.

"We have a country club looking at a 80-killowatt installation," Upp said.

ClearEdge Plus boasts a 9 cents per kilowatt-hour operation cost.

Source: Christina Williams, Sustainable Business Oregon