BEND, Ore., Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The lights went out from the central Oregon coast to Eugene when 70-mph winds ripped through the area and knocked out power to tens of thousands Feb. 7.
One bright spot was the warehouse at Emerald Peoples Utility District in Eugene. There, a recently installed 3-5 kilowatt IdaTech fuel cell system provided crews the only power they had as they worked though the wet night to restore electricity. ``It was great. We started the fuel cell and it gave us power,'' said Richard Jackson-Gistelli, leader of the district's commercial, industrial division. In addition to lights and heat, the refrigerator-sized system, which runs very quietly and produces almost no emissions, powered a cable puller used to stock line trucks from a great spool. For the 14 hours the warehouse's main power was out, the IdaTech fuel cell system purred along flawlessly. ``It provided us a well-needed service,'' said Jackson-Gistelli, who said all he had to do was push a button to start the system up. ``This clearly demonstrates an early promise of fuel cells: clean, quiet, dependable back-up power without the disadvantages of traditional gensets,'' said Mark Fleiner, IdaTech's vice president of marketing. EPUD is participating in a multi-state field-test program of IdaTech's systems managed by the Bonneville Power Administration. Utility leaders are exploring the potential of fuel cells to provide an array of service opportunities, including power to remote sites and back-up power to homes and businesses. Fuel cells produce power in an electro-chemical process that is low polluting, efficient and quiet. IdaTech is developing fuel cell processors and integrated systems for stationary and portable uses. Fleiner expects the first commercial uses will be for intermittent demand applications, particularly emergency and portable power systems. ``We are increasingly dependent on electricity at work and home,'' he said. ``In the future, when nature strikes and the power grid goes down, people will turn to their fuel cells.'' Jackson-Gistelli said that's just what the crews in the warehouse were able to do the night of the storm, when most of its 18,000 customers were without power. ``Most of the area was knocked out. But we had light in our warehouse. And that was great,'' he said. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
