Danbury clean energy manufacturer FuelCell Energy, Inc. on Friday said it will install its largest American fuel cell park in Bridgeport.
National power generator Dominion will develop and own the 14.9 megawatt facility, and Berlin-based electric utility Connecticut Light & Power will buy the electricity produced by the fuel cells under a 15-year fixed price energy purchase agreement.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The project is funded in part by the state’s Clean Energy Finance & Investment Authority.
Connecticut considers fuel cell electricity to be a renewable energy, so the 14.9 megawatt park, which powers the equivalent of 150,000 homes, will help CL&P and the state meet renewable portfolio standard goals. The fuel cells in the park will run on natural gas, using the hydrogen component of the fossil fuel in an electrochemical processes that produces power with no greenhouse gas emissions.
The park on 1.7 acres leased from the Bridgeport city government will include five 2.8 megawatt Direct Fuel Cell plants made in FuelCell’s Torrington production facility, along with a liquor vapor – or organic rankine cycle – turbine for additional power output. FuelCell said the park will support 160 direct manufacturing and maintenance jobs.
For Dominion, this marks the first addition of fuel cell electricity to its generation portfolio. The Virginia company also owns and operates the nuclear Millstone Power Station in Waterford, which produces more than 2,000 megawatts of zero-emissions electricity.
The first of the five plants will be installed in the summer with the park fully operational by the end of 2013.
The entire project is a partnership between eight organizations: FuelCell; Dominion; CEFIA; Bridgeport; CL&P; New Haven-based electric utility United Illuminating, which owns the power substations; Nevada-based Ormat Technologies, which is supplying the organic rankine cycle technology; and Wisconsin-based Rockwell Automation, which is supplying the inverters for the fuel cells.
