Energy Visions Inc. (EVI, Ottawa, ON) announced that it has modeled a hybrid system using a combination of the company's proprietary technologies, the direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and nickel-zinc (NiZn) battery. The EVI DMFC system operates directly on methanol extracting hydrogen without a fuel reformer, and the company believes the selective integrated combination of the EVI DMFC and NiZn battery offers the advantages of low-cost, high-efficiency, mobile-electric power.
EVI President Wayne Hartford stated, "As part of our ongoing research into alternate energy systems, EVI has been developing a system that can use existing fueling infrastructures to save the time and cost of developing a hydrogen system. We have been reviewing the performance and costs required for fuel cell commercialization and believe the EVI hybrid system can reduce the costs by a factor of five versus projections using fuel cell power exclusively. We are forecasting an initial prototype demonstration of this concept in approximately 12 months. To our knowledge, we are the only company in the world that has both the batteries and fuel cells which will allow us to maximize this opportunity."
