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FuelCell Energy to Supply 1MW Plant to CA. University

FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqNM:FCEL), a leading manufacturer of fuel cell power plants, and its partner Alliance Power Inc., announced the sale of a 1 megawatt (MW) fuel cell power plant to California State University, Northridge. The fuel cell will be used in a combined heat and power plant. It will generate base load electricity for the university’s facilities and surplus heat for hot water. Uniquely, the university also plans on routing exhaust from the heat exchanger into an adjacent greenhouse and arboretum to enhance photosynthesis, boosting plant growth and harvests by 10 to 40 percent. The carbon dioxide enrichment potential provided by the fuel cell plant may be used for specialized plant research, or as a convention of study within the regular biology academic program — an opportunity rarely made available to baccalaureate biology students. CSUN’s unit will be the single largest fuel cell power plant at any university in the world and is the seventh DFC plant of any capacity installed at a university. Institutions of higher education represent an excellent application of fuel cells’ 24/7 electrical generation — where they can power academic facilities during the day and address critical base load needs at night. Because the units […]

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Pacific Ethanol Completes $84 Million Equity Investment & Debt Financing

Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (Nasdaq: PEIX) has completed the offering and sale of 5,250,000 shares of Series A Cumulative Redeemable Convertible Preferred Stock for $84 million to Cascade Investment, L.L.C. The shares of preferred stock are convertible into shares of common stock at an initial conversion ratio of two shares of common stock for each share of preferred stock which, if converted immediately, would result in the issuance of 10,500,000 shares of common stock. Pacific Ethanol also announced today that it has completed a debt financing for up to a total of approximately $34 million with Hudson United Bank, a division of TD BankNorth, and Comerica Bank. A portion of the proceeds from the preferred stock offering and all of the proceeds from the debt financing will be used to complete construction of Pacific Ethanol’s ethanol production plant in Madera County, California. This plant is currently under construction and is scheduled to be completed and begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2006. The remaining portion of the proceeds from the preferred stock offering will be used to pay a portion of the costs of construction of other ethanol plants on the West Coast. Pacific Ethanol has announced plans to construct […]

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Maxwell Technologies Licenses Ultracapacitor Technology to Shanghai Power Utility

Maxwell Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXWL) announced it signed a contract with Shanghai Urban Electric Power Investment Development Corporation (SUEP), granting SUEP a license to manufacture and market ultracapacitor products based on Maxwell’s proprietary large cell and multi-cell module technology under its own brand in mainland China. The contract, which also obligates SUEP to source ultracapacitor electrode material exclusively from Maxwell, has a six-year term, renewable by mutual agreement. Dr. Richard Balanson, Maxwell’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said that while Maxwell also is targeting the Chinese market with its own BOOSTCAP ultracapacitor products, the alliance with SUEP is expected to accelerate large cell ultracapacitor products’ penetration of that large and rapidly growing market and generate significant sales of Maxwell’s proprietary electrode material. “There is strong and immediate demand in China for ultracapacitor-based energy storage and power delivery solutions,” Balanson said. “SUEP’s financial resources and its network of affiliated power utility and manufacturing companies and distribution channels will enable it to expand ultracapacitor sales into the Chinese industrial and transportation markets more broadly and rapidly than Maxwell can on its own. We expect this relationship to generate high-volume sales of our electrode material, and in time, it may also provide an […]

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UQM Announces Successful Production Launch

UQM TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (Amex: UQM), a developer of alternative energy technologies, has launched volume production of vehicle auxiliary motors under a production order announced in November 2005 and has received a follow-on order for an additional 10,000 units. Product shipments for the first fiscal quarter ending June 30, 2006 are expected to total approximately $300,000 and rise to approximately $500,000 for the second fiscal quarter. Production volumes for the third fiscal quarter and beyond are expected to continue to rise, achieving an annual revenue value of several million dollars. “The production of these vehicle auxiliary motors will result in a significant increase in our product sales revenue, improved gross profit margins on product sales and decreasing operating losses for this fiscal year. We expect to receive additional orders for other products from this customer as well as orders from new customers in other conventional product markets currently being pursued, that can further accelerate the growth of our product revenue,” said William G. Rankin, UQM Technologies, Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer. UQM Technologies, Inc. is a developer and manufacturer of power dense, high efficiency electric motors, generators and power electronic controllers for the automotive, aerospace, medical, military and industrial markets. […]

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Polyfuel Cuts Losses

PolyFuel Inc.(PYF.L) a developer of fuel cell membranes for portable applications, says it cut net losses for 2005 to $7.9 million from $9 million in 2004. The company shipped almost 3,000 fuel cell membranes in 2005, growing revenues to $1.04 million, up from $358,047,000. Polyfuel plans commercialize its technology by 2007/2008.

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Veridium Receives Order from S.African Ethanol Producer

Veridium Corporation (VRDM.OB) has received an order from Ethanol Africa for the use of its patent-pending Corn Oil Extraction System(TM) at Ethanol Africa’s new Bothaville, South Africa ethanol production facility. Veridium’s proprietary new Corn Oil Extraction Systems(TM) extract high grade corn oil from an ethanol by-product called distillers dried grain (DDG). Veridium’s technology can remove up to 75% of the corn oil from within the DDG in two stages. The first stage extracts 1.1 to 1.3 million gallons per year and corresponds to about 30% of the corn oil in the DDG for a 40 million gallon per year facility. The second stage of the Veridium technology recovers another 30% to 45% of the corn oil in the DDG, corresponding to another 1.2 to 2.2 million gallons of corn oil per year out of a 40 million gallon per year ethanol facility. 3 million gallons per year of high grade corn oil converts to 3 million gallons per year of biodiesel. This equates to a 7% increase in fuel production out of a 40 million gallon per year ethanol facility, and a significant increase in plant productivity out of the plant’s existing infrastructure. The Ethanol Africa order is for the […]

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