Consortium Formed to Develop Household Fuel Cell Market

On 16 April 2003, the Japan Research Institute announced that it will form a consortium in May to expedite the development of the household fuel cell market in Japan. Several dozens of manufacturers and gas companies are expected to join.

Various moves toward the development and practical application of the fuel cells are accelerating. Above all, it is expected that the use of fixed-type fuel cells in households will spread more rapidly than for automobiles, and the government's fuel cell project team has set a target for fuel cell power generation in households at 2.1 million kW in 2010. One private research institute estimates that the market scale of household fuel cells in 2010 will amount to 265 billion yen (approximately U.S.$22.27 billion). Currently, the installation of the fuel cells is very costly, but there are strong views that this cost will go down rapidly due to technological innovation.

Traditionally, development of fuel cells centered around the hardware, but the forthcoming DESS (Decentralized Energy System & Software) consortium is paying attention to the software side (control and running methods), with several fuel cells linked together via networks. The consortium intend to lead the market in developing and accumulating intellectual property. In the future, the group will develop a system whereby the pools of intellectual property can be shared by the participating companies, and will work towards expanding business in Japan and abroad.



Posted: 2003/05/29 02:08:36 PM
Japanese version