ITM Power Plc (ITMPF)

[Gerry321]

Conno If the UK are paying $8.57 per US gal now and it is expected to rise to $ 10.90 per US gal
Then they could save quite a bit of money by converting their petrol cars to run on hydrogen
Here`s some information that might help
All pem electrolyzers on sale today in the US use platinum as a catalyst which they coat on to the two electrodes. The more platinum that is used the greater is the volume of hydrogen obtained fron each Kw of power Because platinum is so expensive the manufacturers have to balance the cost of platinum used against the hydrogen obtained this is called the cell efficiency
So
while all pem electrolyzers are capable of efficiencies in the 90% all pem manufacturers have found that the break even point is well below this figure Indeed a similar situation exists with fuel cells which also need platinum


We know from published US data that green energy from wind costs 5 cents/Kw to 7 cents/Kw We also know from ITM data that the cost of a 10 Kw electrolyzer works out at 1.6cents/Kw over a 10,000 hr life
On this basis I calculate the following "all in " cost for a US gas car retrofitted to use hydrogen for the first 25mls to 100mls per day and then switch over to gas This was the scenario envisaged by the ITM CEO Jim Heathcote

Elect....Kwh,.......H2 cost equiv to one US gallon
eff......Reqd..............5c/Kwh...........7c/Kwh
................................$..............$

95%.......27.51...............1.39............1.94
90%.......29.03...............1.47............2.05
85%.......30.74...............1.55............2.17
80%.......32.66...............1.65............2.30
75%.......34.84...............1.76............2.45
70%.......37.33...............1.88............2.63
65%.......40.20...............2.03............2.83
60%.......43.55...............2.19............3.06
55%.......47.51...............2.39............3.34
I reckon ITM can get around 90 to 95% efficiency while the best pem platinum electrolyzer will struggle to be cost effective at 60% to 65%
So even if the selling price was the same, an ITM Home Refuelling Unit ought to be able to make the equivalent of gas at say$2/gal versus $2.80/gal to $3.00/gal
But the selling prices wont be the same as ITM have already proved that they can mould an electrlyzer for something like 7.5% of the cost of similar units on sale today
This is not to say that ITM will sell at say 10% of the selling price of the competition......why should they when they have a technically superior product
However the current high price of electrolyzers is stifling growth so my guess is that ITM will launch in the USA at something like 50% of the competition
..... which unfortunately is probably the kiss of death for Hydrogenics

enough for now
PS How much is gas in Saudi....and Thailand ?