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FuelCell Energy Signs with King County for Direct FuelCell Energy Project

May 08, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

FuelCell Energy Inc. (Danbury, CT) and King County, WA, jointly announced the signing of an agreement to install a Direct FuelCell (DFC) power plant using municipal waste-water digester gas as the fuel. FuelCell Energy was selected for the project through a competitive process last July to install and operate a 1MW DFC power plant at the county's South Wastewater Treatment Facility in Renton, WA. The two-year demonstration project is cost-shared equally by FuelCell Energy and King County, through a cooperative grant to the county from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Total value of the contract is $18.8 million. Operations are expected to commence during the third quarter of 2002.

“This megawatt-class commercial field trial of the DFC power plant represents the first advanced waste-water digester project for FuelCell Energy", said Jerry Leitman, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy. “This project will demonstrate the versatility of fuel use with the Direct FuelCell, as well as its capability to produce more electricity than other technologies using the same quantity of fuel. With 500 municipal waste-water treatment systems in the US, and a greater number of industrial waste-water treatment facilities that produce sufficient gas to supply our fuel cell power plants, we anticipate that generation of electricity at waste-water treatment plants will be a significant market for FuelCell Energy."