Published on Thursday 15th January, 2015

The Financial Times reported this week an uplift in businesses and homes in the US that produce their own power. Spurred on by falling costs and government incentives, this significant change in energy provision and storage favours a distributed power approach that signals a shift away from the traditional reliance on power from big utilities and the grid. And, as this approach grows globally, it could put the centralised power generation business model at risk of becoming outdated.

Global energy companies are beginning to recognise this change and some are restructuring their businesses to better incorporate renewables to offer a more complete energy mix in order to become more efficient. German company E.ON is an example of one such company that goes beyond using fossil fuels when providing power.

The business case for distributed power is growing as the needs of modern society diversifies; power consumption is increasing with the proliferation of smart devices in this always-on connected era. In addition, countries in the developing world require targeted power to support their rapid economic growth. Traditionally, economies have relied on a mix of fossil fuels and have added renewable energy sources into the mix as appropriate. In fact, the Financial Times piece points to a number of businesses that are using solar, wind and other sources to generate their own power.

However, the amount of power generated by renewable sources is intermittent; renewable energy remains heavily reliant on the weather as its source. The knock on impact is that energy storage has begun to play a more important role in helping to overcome fluctuations caused by increased renewable energy generation. To overcome these fluctuations in supply, generated electricity would ideally be used directly or stored for use when demand is high. The use of hydrogen as a storage solution offers a very viable and practical option.

According to the International Energy Agency, an estimated USD 48 trillion in investment is needed to meet the energy demands of the world's growing population. Hydrogen can play an important part in the energy mix as it provides an alternative and abundant energy, and critically, bulk energy storage at GWh level. Modular fuel cell systems, such as those developed by Intelligent Energy, turn hydrogen into energy. And a lot of small power modules can scale up rapidly to provide efficient power for a wide range of consumption needs and demands from consumer electronics devices to distributed power, for instance, for telecoms towers.

Dr Henri Winand, Intelligent Energy's CEO said: "The global need for distributed power is very exciting commercially. The power generation landscape transformation is rapid and profound; it is a vast global market inhabited by often slow moving and inefficient incumbents.

"E.ON's CEO nailed it in his recent interview in the FT: it is technology which is fundamentally transforming the power generation landscape into what is a much more distributed power generation world, not merely regulations.

"Much like the gold rush a century ago, the smart money was invested in people who made the spades, those who had the 'enabling technologies'. That's what we have at Intelligent Energy, key enabling technologies with our differentiated, proven and versatile fuel cell tech.

"That's how Intelligent Energy has already grown a new distributed power and generation (DP&G) division from a standstill to a portfolio of more than 100MW of high value distributed power assets under contract in but a few months in India in the telecom market. We're transforming this power estate over time with our technology. A few weeks ago, we also launched a new small, highly distributed power generation consumer electronics product named Upp™ in Apple stores in the UK.

"This is only the start."

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