Business
Centrica CHP programme update
Centrica CHP programme update.
About this update from Ceres Power Holdings Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n Ceres Power Holdings plc\n25 May 2006\n\n\n\n\n Ceres Power Holdings plc\n ('Ceres Power', 'Ceres' or the 'Company')\n \n Ceres Power announces wall-mountable system design under\n British Gas CHP programme\n\nCeres Power, the AIM-quoted fuel cell group, today announces that it has \nsuccessfully achieved a significant milestone in the design of its Combined \nHeat and Power (CHP) product as part of the £2.7 million programme with Centrica\ntrading as British Gas). Design work by Ceres engineers has established that \nthe complete CHP system will be sufficiently compact and lightweight to be \nwall-mountable. This feature is a pre-requisite for installation into the \nmajority of new or existing UK homes as a replacement for standard gas boilers.\n\nAchievement of this system innovation has been enabled by the compact, \nlightweight 1kW Ceres fuel cell stack, announced in March 2006, which is the \nundamental building block of Ceres' micropower generation products.\n\nUnder the contract with British Gas, Ceres is designing, building and evaluating\nfuel cell CHP units capable of delivering electricity, heating and hot water for\nthe home, substantially reducing domestic energy costs and CO2 emissions. \nToday's announcement represents the achievement of a major objective under the \nprogramme, and progresses plans with British Gas to introduce Ceres' fuel cells \ninto UK homes.\n\nAs well as size and weight, a key factor for mass market take-up is production \ncost. Ceres anticipates an attractive bill of materials cost for the entire \nsystem, based on the Company's evaluation of key system components including \ncontrol electronics, air and fuel delivery hardware, in its test facility. \nBy virtue of its unique technology operating at lower temperatures, Ceres is \nable to use standard, low cost materials for its fuel cell and balance of plant.\n\nPeter Bance, CEO of Ceres Power, comments:\n\n'We are very pleased with the rapid progress made in this joint programme with \nBritish Gas, indicating that our technology is able to meet the requirements of\nthe mass market. In particular, the fact that our system design is similar in \nsize to conventional wall-mounted boilers is a significant differentiator, \nmaking our product highly applicable not just to the UK market, but to other \nkey geographies such as Europe and Japan...