We've written about ITM Power and their plans to build a home hydrogen generating station several times before. The British company now has a prototype unit running in a Sheffield along with a Ford Focus that has been converted to run on hydrogen. The hydrogen generator includes an electrolyzer to produce H2 from water, and the hydrogen in the demonstration house is being used as a vehicle fuel, as well as for heating, cooling and other functions. Powering the generator is possible through the use renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. Honda is developing something along the same lines that it calls the Home Energy station. The HES however, reforms natural gas to produce hydrogen and then uses the hydrogen both to fuel a vehicle as well as a fuel cell that provides electricity and heat to the home. ITM, for some reason, has chosen to use a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine to drive a generator to provide electricity to the home. The losses going from renewable electricty to hydrogen and back would greatly outweigh any benefits. At least the Honda system skips the electricity-hydrogen-electricity loop. On the plus side, ITM believes it can sell its hydrogen generator for about $4,000 and hopes to produce it by the end of this year. You can check out the video report at the BBC site.

[Source: BBC]

Britain's ITM Power is working with Roush Technologies to try and get hydrogen-fueled commercial vehicles on the road in the UK. Roush will expand their existing work on hydrogen fueling conversions for internal combustion engines to the UK market. The focus of the efforts, initially, will be on commercial vehicles. Roush also plans to develop new dedicated hydrogen-fueled engines. Meanwhile, if anyone plans to convert their vehicles to run on hydrogen, that's were ITM Power PLC comes in. ITM develops fuel cells and electrolysis equipment and they are working on fueling stations with on-site hydrogen generation. The company plans to launch production later this year of an electrolyser system that can be installed at filling stations to produce hydrogen from water using renewable sources such as solar, wind and wave power or from off-peak grid power. How much these systems will cost is unknown, but if it can be made affordable for stations to install, it could give a jump start to hydrogen as a fuel in Britain.

[Source: Channel4]

Remember the home electrolyser "breakthrough" that ITM Power was all extcited about a few months ago? Well, it's back, and ITM is now describing how the rest of the home will operate with the system. The basic idea is that the electrolyser will make hydrogen using "increasingly available from wind, wave, solar or hydro-electric power" (or, of course, normally-produced electricity) and water. The hydrogen could then be used in heating boilers, cooking stoves/ovens as well as a bi-fuel vehicle, or converted to electricity through fuel cells. The obvious question at this point is why convert electricity to hydrogen just to go back to electricity. Fuel cells can store electricity, but so can batteries. ITM claims its scientists at the Sustainable Energy Tehnologies Centre have "developed and patented new low cost materials which significantly outperform and undercut those currently being used by other firms involved in the production of electrolysers." Power everything in your home using renewable energy and water? Cool. It's a dream house, if everything works as described. And that's a big if.

Read more, direct from ITM, after the jump.

Related:

• ITM Power, a British hydrogen company, says it's reached a bi-fuel "breakthrough"
• New research center will study hydrogen in IC engines

[Source: ITM Power]

The British company ITM Power said today it has a made a "major breakthrough" for petrol-to-hyrogen vehicle conversions. Let's see how much through this announcement breaks.

ITM and the University of Hertfordshire have been working for about the last six months on putting hydrogen in IC engines
at the Sustainable Energy Tehnologies Centre (SETCE). The news from ITM today is that they've run a bi-fuel Ford Focus, "with minimal modifications," through initial trials that sent the car over 25 miles on a single charge of hydrogen (they don't say how much hydrogen makes up this single charge).

The other announcement is about the green box you see in the picture. This device is "a low-cost electrolyser which can convert renewable energy (wind, wave or solar power) or off-peak electricity into hydrogen." The device made hydrogen that the Focus used in its test.

Jim Heathcote, ITM Power's CEO, keeps up the bluster, saying "Both these developments represent a seismic advance in our efforts to cut ourselves free from the dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. The Bi-fuel car and refuelling system clearly demonstrate a simple, convenient and low-cost transportation solution that can significantly reduce greenhouse gases and help mitigate climate change. We believe combining electrolysers with an internal combustion-engined vehicle brings affordable hydrogen transportation forward by many years."

ITM will demonstrate the refueling station and the car later the year. But what's the breakthrough here? Other companies have hydrogen-burning ICEs, and there are other hydrogen home refueling systems in the works. I'm glad to see people working on alternatives to petrol, but, um, let's not use breakthrough without good reason, K?

Related:

• New research center will study hydrogen in IC engines

[Source: ITM Power]

The University of Hertfordshire will soon open the Sustainable Energy Tehnologies Centre (SETCE), and the goal is to build the world's "greenest" cars. The University has entered into a Knowledge Transfer Project with ITM Power to develop the use of elecrolytic hydrogen in internal combustion engines. A future goal includes developing methods to refuel hydrogen at home or work. Researchers will also test hydrogen in the diesel combustion process. The center will be located on the university's College Lane campus (shown).

Full release after the break.

[Source: University of Hertfordshire]