BOC, the UK & Ireland's largest supplier of industrial gases and related equipment, has launched the Hymera II, its second generation portable H2 fuel cell generator for clean and quiet off-grid power. Designed for today's high efficiency, lower power electrical loads, the new Hymera II unit can offer cost savings of up to 75 per cent for loads up to 150 Watts. It is a flexible and effective alternative solution to traditional diesel or petrol generators and will make many new applications possible where previously there was no commercially viable power solution.
Hymera II, supplied with readily available compressed hydrogen from BOC, can support a wide range of commercial and industrial off-grid applications such as task lighting (for railway and tunnel maintenance work for example), security cameras, environmental monitoring and process control systems.
Incorporating ground-breaking hydrogen fuel cell technology that produces electricity from the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, the Hymera II is environmentally friendly - producing water as the only by-product - and is extremely quiet, typically less than 45 decibels at 5 metres.
Developed by BOC, a member of The Linde Group, Hymera generators are particularly useful for supporting isolated security cameras that previously ran on batteries, which required changing every four or five days. Changing heavy batteries is time-consuming and extremely arduous. In comparison, a simple 20 Watt security camera powered by the Hymera fuel cell can run for about 2 weeks on a single lightweight cylinder. One GENIE hydrogen cylinder weighing 22.5kg carries as much electrical energy as more than 200kg of lead acid batteries (equivalent to ca 15 typical car batteries).
Stewart Dow, Product and Market Development Manager - Fuel Cells, at BOC, commented "BOC is very pleased to be introducing the new Hymera II to the market. It has significantly improved and extended features compared with the original Hymera generator, which was launched by BOC in 2011. New features include controllable output voltage (i.e. 12V or 24V), remote start-stop and greatly simplified OEM integration. Clean and silent, the unit offers high levels of reliability and availability - it can be used anywhere from a street corner to a mountain top. It also has the benefit of a very small carbon footprint and offers significant savings in operating and fuel costs compared with conventional generation technologies such as diesel generators."
Taylor Construction Plant (TCP) has developed the Ecolite-H2, the world's first commercially available hydrogen fuel powered lighting tower, which has already seen extensive use throughout the UK over the past 18 months. It offers similar operating costs to a diesel powered system but with a fraction of the carbon footprint, no risk of diesel spillage and almost no noise. TCP's Managing Director, Andrew Barker, said "TCP is delighted to be partnering with BOC with the integration of the Hymera Fuel Cell as part of a strategic move to achieve our mission in the continual carbon footprint reduction of mobile lighting towers for ALL their applications".
One of the first customers to use this combination of Hymera II and GENIE technologies is Severn Trent Water, which uses the Hymera hydrogen fuel cell system to power security alarms and water level monitors along the Elan Valley Aqueduct. Adrian Gilbert, Aqueduct Manager West at Severn Trent Water, said: "Severn Trent Water has been using BOC's Hymera fuel cell systems to power nearly 20 sites over the past three years and they have performed well and will continue to be used in our infrastructure in the future".