CFC chief executive Brendan Dow said 10,000-hour milestone was particularly significant as the company’s independent customer field trials demonstrated CFC’s technology operated under “real-world” conditions.

The CFC customers trialling the company are:

German utility firm EWE, serving over one million electricity customers and 750,000 gas customers, with annual sales of €6 billion ($A10.2 billion);

Major New Zealand gas and electricity provider Powerco; and

Australian “environmentally friendly” building developer szencorp [see related story].

A field trial conducted at Australian electricity, gas and telecom training institution ETTA also contributed to operating hours, before the CFC unit was moved to the szencorp site, 40A in South Melbourne.

“The early focus of these trials has been to demonstrate that the system as a whole works reliably,” said Dow.

“We’ve had strong feedback from customers – namely the energy companies – that field trials are an important step in understanding our customers’ needs and gaining experience in actually integrating fuel cell units into an electricity network.”

CFC recently achieved dual listing on the ASX and AIM exchanges.

EnvironmentalManagementNews.net