CFU - Ceramic Fuel Cells

[MACCA350]

One would think it reasonable to run the unit until the cells need replacement

Hope not, from memory the cells should last 5 years or something like that......I had a long term outlook on this one and have been holding and accumulating for over a year now, but that's longer than I had in mind.

I had a 3 year outlook so I'm down to under 2 now. I am assuming this is the year they start producing in numbers. So far they have numerous companies trialing the units for themselves, CFU have already performed extensive tests on the units to prove the productivity and reliability, so I believe these companies are using trial units to assess hands on for themselves and nut out the implementation and integration for their markets. I'm sure they will be testing their durability, but I doubt they will wait 5 years(if I remembered that correctly) to make a decision, considering they will have the data from CFU's testing.

I'd say these companies will start making a move over the course of this year, they may just be waiting for the CE and other approvals. Once that first bulk order is announced the sp should respond strongly as this will be conformation of all that CFU have worked towards for the last 18 years.

That's my 2c anyway

cheers

 

[jbocker]

Hope not, from memory the cells should last 5 years or something like that......I had a long term outlook on this one and have been holding and accumulating for over a year now, but that's longer than I had in mind.

I had a 3 year outlook so I'm down to under 2 now. I am assuming this is the year they start producing in numbers. So far they have numerous companies trialing the units for themselves, CFU have already performed extensive tests on the units to prove the productivity and reliability, so I believe these companies are using trial units to assess hands on for themselves and nut out the implementation and integration for their markets. I'm sure they will be testing their durability, but I doubt they will wait 5 years(if I remembered that correctly) to make a decision, considering they will have the data from CFU's testing.

I'd say these companies will start making a move over the course of this year, they may just be waiting for the CE and other approvals. Once that first bulk order is announced the sp should respond strongly as this will be conformation of all that CFU have worked towards for the last 18 years.

That's my 2c anyway

cheers

Macca350, I also recall it being 5 year fuel cell life, and 15 years for the bluegen unit. Also recall some utilities will manufacture and brand their own units, installing the CFU fuelcells.
Replacing the fuelcells is good for ongoing repeat business revenue. Just have to get a major company to commit to commercial sales orders, and I reckon a few others will follow, and then the company is up and away.
I am expecting (ok hoping) that 2010 to be the year. May happen late in the year, my worry is how much does the factory cost to run till commercial orders arrive?

I plan to hold long term, hoping for a an eventual dividend payer into retirement... (a.k.a. long term punt! )

 

[frankblack]

Its good that we are seeing more traction, cant wait for Australia especially Victoria to get on-board and support the best aussie product for a long time. Just found out what Ceres are up to,
http://tinyurl.com/yl3pz9e
about 2 years behind CFU.

 

[Boyou]

Thanks for the article,frankblack.
Interesting that they mention Protonex and Bloom ,but not CFCL.Bloom aren't even chasing the same market as Ceres.

Perhaps that is a bit "selective" of the reporter

 

[MACCA350]

Thanks for the article,frankblack.
Interesting that they mention Protonex and Bloom ,but not CFCL.Bloom aren't even chasing the same market as Ceres.

Perhaps that is a bit "selective" of the reporter

Don't know how they got those 2 contracts(53,500 units over 4 years), they seem too far behind the eight ball to supply and at current production(100's to low 1,000's per year) they will not meet their obligations.

CFU are in a much better position and are ready to supply in such numbers(currently 10,000/year with ramp up capacity to 160,000/year) and already have supplied 9(if I counted correctly) companies with trial units starting in Nov last year.............all we need is those contracts to start rolling in

cheers

 

[roland]

I'm still trying to understand why CFU have Neco as their Australian partner.

As far as I can tell, they are just an online web store, hardly what is required in my opinion:

Neco was founded in March 2004 in response to the ever-increasing pressure that the modern economy places on the environment. Neco is now Australia's leading online eco store, with over 12 staff located in Blackburn, Victoria and in excess of 3500 eco products on offer.

 

[roland]

Bloom gets a kick in the butt from Business Insider:

Sorry, The Much-Hyped "Bloom Box" Is Not The Holy Grail Of Alternative Energy

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/my-verdict-on-the-bloom-box-2010-3#ixzz0jqYFJ2IB

I think the cost of ownership and Return On Investment is going to be a major hurdle for CFU as well.

 

[omac]

hmmm, interesting read, thanks for the link. A good reminder to remain realistic about things.

I think a few points aren't quite accurate though. I'm sure that natural gas reserves are vast and don't look like running out anytime soon. Russia and Qatar have the huge reserves. I think there is also data on the CIA WorldBook site that states very little of the reserves have been extracted so far.

Also the CFU unit appears to be more versatile than the bloom unit. It also heats water thereby increasing efficiency and performing a second function as a boiler (?), which are quite common overseas (I had no idea what one was until recently)

What are energy prices like in the EU compared to USA, does this make the CFU unit more viable? Given the targeted market is EU.
The article is rather US-centric. Goes to show what a bit of publicity can do for your cause.


Im not sure about Neco, I feel that it may be a contract they picked up that wasn't necessarily aimed for (my feeling only). Ideally a contract with AGL or Origin would have happened, but they aren't targeting the Oz market (main manufacturing plant in germany). Oz seems to be behind in regard to tariffs and policy etc, so better off for CFU to expend their effort in markets more prepared for the technology.

I am keenly watching CFU, they are selling test units to parties in a range of countries (9 parties from AUS, JPN, UK, GER, NED, SUI on my count) which is encouraging, suggesting to me that the technology is promising and widely applicable.

Just a matter of waiting to see the outcome of these tests and whether they result in any high volume sales.

Also I believe that CE decision is not too far away.

Disclosure: I don't hold

 

[basilio]

I'm still trying to understand why CFU have Neco as their Australian partner.

As far as I can tell, they are just an online web store, hardly what is required in my opinion:

Quote:
Neco was founded in March 2004 in response to the ever-increasing pressure that the modern economy places on the environment. Neco is now Australia's leading online eco store, with over 12 staff located in Blackburn, Victoria and in excess of 3500 eco products on offer.

Actually NECO have quite a large premises in Blackburn, Melbourne . They probably have many extra items which are available on line.

As far as being a partner for CFU ? Well it makes sense given the environmental nature of the product. Real question will be the figures - costs , returns maintenance. Would be great to see that information.

 

[goosmurf]

I think a few points aren't quite accurate though. I'm sure that natural gas reserves are vast and don't look like running out anytime soon.

A month or so ago when I first started looking at CFU I had this exact question. A bit of Googling reveals that there's over 60 years reserves, and historically humanity has managed to discover new reserves faster than than the growth of consumption.

What are energy prices like in the EU compared to USA, does this make the CFU unit more viable? Given the targeted market is EU.

Have a poke around ukpower.co.uk to get some rough retail UK pricing. I couldn't get the math to work in favour of the CFU units even at the most optimistic end-unit pricing.

Had a look at Neco's website:
"BlueGen forecast to generate electricity at a cost of 11.1 cents per kWh Includes the value of the heat and carbon credits ~39% cheaper than current Victorian electricity prices (18.1 cents per kW incl GST)."

That's a reasonable approximation of retail electricity pricing but what's missing is the gas input cost and the BlueGen unit (+installation) cost. And I assume there is a difference in installation cost of a electricity & heat co-gen vs plain power generation.

I find it disconcerting that the BlueGen costs are not publicly available - if it was a clearly positive investment then you'd think they would make that obvious so I'm going to assume that its not.

This reminds me of solar products - when the NSW Govt announced its GFIT I contacted 3 different solar providers and none was willing to give even a rough estimate of the cost. If a customer can't gather the facts to do the sums and work out the ROI why would anyone buy this? Except maybe to be green.

If anyone is doing the sums keep in mind the future value of the up front capital investment. i.e. if you spend $10k (hypothetically) on purchasing & installing a BlueGen today you're also missing out on say a cash rate of 7%, and when the payback period might be 5 years or more its significant.

I don't mean to down-ramp CFU as I do believe the technology has a future but with the lack of price information ATM I don't think its reasonable to consider investing in CFU on a financial basis. I am trading CFU on a short term basis as there is a lot of positive bias towards it at the moment. It showed some weakness today but that might be just because of the upcoming Easter break.

 

[MACCA350]

The Australian distributor has yet to set local RRP.

From the BlueGen press release last year

BlueGen forecast to cost around $8,000 per unit in mass production

Here is CFU's submission to the Department of the Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water for the Feed-in Tariff Scheme

You'll notice the incentives from other countries which will greatly reduce the upfront costs and payback period for the units sold in those countries. CFU actually made a presentation to them and there is a transcript of that somewhere.

Currently Australia is lagging well behind for alternatives such as the BlueGen. Hopefully this will change in stage 2 of the feed-in tariff scheme. I believe one of the Australian electricity companies have already stated that they will pay feed in tariff's for BlueGen customers regardless of what government schemes are in place.

There is another path that CFU have mentioned previously and that's to supply the electricity companies with the units, not just customer sales through retail outlets.

cheers

 

[frankblack]

The way i see it CFU is not marketing to individuals who might only look at ROI.
Rather they are pitching to collectives, those who make electricity those who sell gas.
Even fully priced i dont believe any other means can provide power cheaper than ceramic fuel cells. Apart from that i believe the reduction of CO2 is a huge factor when they are costing this in Europe. i wouldnt be surprised if they were generating carbon credits which could be traded/offset making the whole package even more attractive. if i was Origin energy i would kill to get a million of these babys out there.

 

[roland]

Yes! - CFU Obtains CE approval for BlueGen product.

CERAMIC FUEL CELLS OBTAINS ‘CE’ APPROVAL FOR BLUEGEN PRODUCT
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM/ASX: CFU), a leading developer of high efficiency and low emission electricity generation units for homes and other buildings, has successfully obtained ‘CE’ safety approval for its BlueGen gas-to-electricity generator product.

That should move things along a little

 

[jbocker]

Yes! - CFU Obtains CE approval for BlueGen product.
...
That should move things along a little

Well 'a little' was right. I expected a bit more excitement from the CE approval. A significant milestone was the long awaited safety approval.
Just indicates to me how lame the current market is for fledgling enterprises like CFCL.

Hang in there CFCL!

 

[roland]

Well 'a little' was right. I expected a bit more excitement from the CE approval. A significant milestone was the long awaited safety approval.
Just indicates to me how lame the current market is for fledgling enterprises like CFCL.

Hang in there CFCL!

It's not always a price move that will tell the story. Look at the volume - over 13,000,000.

On no news days the volume hangs around 5-8 million, so one would assume that weak holders were being relieved of their holdings.

High volume with little or no SP movement on good news indicates market absorbtion - which in this case is a good thing

 

[roland]

Looks like CFU hasn't drawn any attention from institutional buyers yet.

Other than a little flurry of buying with good news we seem quite stagnant. Every time we get up to our resistance level the profit takers come in and sell out.

We have very weak closes nearly everyday. I suspect a lot of short term trading activity looking for the 1 or 2 ticks - been guilty of this myself.

 

[frankblack]

Looks like CFU hasn't drawn any attention from institutional buyers yet.

Other than a little flurry of buying with good news we seem quite stagnant. Every time we get up to our resistance level the profit takers come in and sell out.

We have very weak closes nearly everyday. I suspect a lot of short term trading activity looking for the 1 or 2 ticks - been guilty of this myself.

Looks like you have hit the nail on the head, Roland.
Without 'NEW' money this stock will go nowhere.

 

[frankblack]

Well if this is the world view of fuel cell technology, we will be waiting a very long time. http://tinyurl.com/y5gefm6

"The third type of stationary fuel cells, SOFCs, shows the potential to be one of the key power generation technologies in the future owing to their high electrical efficiency. They can run on many fuels, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and biogas. SOFCs are estimated to have potential revenues of $3.8million by 2018 at a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent. The technology's key geographical markets are Germany, the UK and Italy."

 

[Boyou]

The Hanover Messe Fuel Cell trade fair begins tonight our time (I think)

This showcase has proven quite fruitfull for CFCL in the past.The eyes of the world are upon them again!

General market sentiment beat the SP up a bit today..darn it...

 

[roland]

some very nice news this morning:

VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT ORDERS THIRTY CERAMIC FUEL CELLS’ BLUEGEN UNITS
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM/ASX: CFU) – a leading developer of high efficiency and low emission electricity generation units for homes and other buildings – has received a conditional order for 30 BlueGen gas-to-electricity generators from the Victorian Government’s Office of Housing.

It is conditional - read the news release for full details.

Cheers