October 17, 2019 | 12:06 am
“It’s cleaner, it’s
much more reliable and in many cases, it’s much more cost-effective. None of us
can ignore the impact of fossil fuel on global warming and one of the things
that we should do is to try to stop the usage of diesel,” Rami Reshef, chief
executive officer of GenCell, said in an interview.
“So we came out with
the kind of technology that has been used in space in order to power the space
stations. It’s completely green, no emission at all, no noise, no vibration,
can be worked indoor, outdoor on rooftop and can ensure you almost 100% of
power reliability,” he added.
GenCell plans to bring
the technology from space to earth, and invested time and money to make it
affordable. Aside from being clean, it has no moving parts unlike a regular
diesel combustion engine.
Mr. Reshef said the
technology could work in the Philippines, which suffers some of the worst and
most extreme weather incidents in the world. The large-scale regular use of
diesel generators during outages only compounds environmental issues that
impact the local climate, he added.
“With our system, it’s
electrochemistry process between gases. So there’s no moving parts. You can
control and monitor a fleet of thousands of units for one place, think about
organizations that are spread all over the Philippines,” he said.
Established in 2011,
GenCell’s global team of experts have continuously innovated the company’s
portfolio of fuel cells with patented technologies to provide reliable, clean
and affordable hydrogen-based back-up power for a wide range of industries.
The company estimates
that the Philippines has at least 20,000 automated teller machines (ATM) across
the country, including 8,000 on islands, thus requiring the need for reliable
backup power to process transactions during outages.
GenCell has signed up
local firm Amorele Technology, Inc. to distribute its products in the
Philippines. These products include GenCell G5 long-duration UPS, an alkaline
fuel cell that runs on hydrogen cylinders to provide critical backup for indoor
and outdoor industrial applications such as telecommunication towers and bank
ATMs.
Amorele will also
market GenCell’s G5RX utility backup power solution, which comes with a
protective shelter built nd certified to withstand 7.2 magnitude earthquakes.
GenCells’s A5 off-grid
power solution will also be sold here. The facility is said to be the world’s
only ammonia-based off-grid fuel cell power solution. It extracts hydrogen from
liquid ammonia and boasts a cost of ownership that is lower than a traditional diesel
generator. The A5 is ideal for rural and remote communities and can provide
enough fuel for an entire year.
“We’ve decided to start
with mission-critical businesses,” Mr. Reshef said, referring those that cannot
tolerate a power outage.
For instance, a hotel
can avail of GenCell’s facility but use it only for critical elements, such as
elevators, emergencies lights, IT and TV in the rooms.
“We’re not backing up
the entire hotel, but you will have enough essence in the hotel that will keep
the hotel up and running,” he said.
Mr. Reshef said the
company was working with local fuel providers to supply the gases — oxygen and
hydrogen — used by its system.
“Oxygen we’re taking
from the ambient air, and hydrogen we need to supply. We supply hydrogen in two
forms — gas as in hydrogen and the liquid as in ammonia,” he said.
Amorele’s Alain M.
Caparanga said for the past few months he had been talking to different big
companies in Metro Manila, including hotels, the light rail operator to power
up its signaling systems, and the civil aviation authority for its runway and
air-traffic control.
“Especially, hospitals
because it’s critical for them to make sure their equipment especially in the
emergency room that it will keep running even when there’s brownout or power
fluctuation,” he said.
Mr. Reshef said he
expects GenCell to build its footprint in the Philippines and create the “right
awareness.” He said he sees the company’s presence to go “rapidly up” next
year.
“My plan in the future
is to — the fact that we’re bringing GenCell to the Philippines, it’s not only
for the Philippines alone, although the Philippines is a huge market for us — I
think we can differently use the Philippines as a hub for Southeast Asia,” he
said.
“If the market will
take off, we will move some of our production lines to here, we’ll produce it
over here, some of the equipment, some of the core elements will be produced
here. This will allow us to reduce the price, improve the accessibility to the
market, and then we can look outside the Philippines — countries like Thailand,
Malaysia, Indonesia and others,” he added. — Victor V. Saulon
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