NORTH VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 25, 2007 — Sacré-Davey Innovations, together with consortia partners Westport Innovations and Sacré-Davey Engineering, announces the active demonstration phase of the $18 million Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project (IWHUP).

IWHUP is now demonstrating real world use of waste hydrogen in buses, trucks and a car wash along with distribution and fuelling infrastructure, all in time for the Hydrogen & Fuel Cells Conference at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre April 29 to May 2, 2007.

The five-year, 21 stakeholder project, culminates with a two year fully integrated demonstration of a recovered and purified local waste hydrogen source fuelling transportation and stationary power. Years of design, testing and consortium effort has resulted in a complete, actively working hydrogen system that highlights engineering technical innovation.

To realize the current opportunity from a by-product stream of hydrogen, an integrated approach and financial investment is required from industry as well as government. This project was made possible due to a contribution of $6.0 million from the Hydrogen Early Adopters (h2EA) program under Industry Canada, $5.9 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), and $273,000 from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), in addition to funding from the US DOD. This leverages an industry contribution of $6.1 million for a total project value of $18.3 million.

The IWHUP project, a member of the BC Hydrogen Highway, strengthens Canada and British Columbia’s lead in the advancement and adoption of hydrogen technologies, and is garnering world-wide attention - highlighted with tours for international delegations during the Hydrogen & Fuel Cells Conference.
Background:
Project specifics:

IWHUP sources its hydrogen from a vented industrial waste stream in North Vancouver that is large enough to power 20,000 vehicles annually; just a portion of the 50,000,000 kg of hydrogen vented annually in Canada.

At Newalta’s North Vancouver waste oil processing site, HTEC (Hydrogen Technology & Energy Corp) has built a modular hydrogen purification and compression plant, to recover and process the hydrogen. Designed by Sacré-Davey Engineering, HTEC’s CORE technology integrates with QuestAir’s Pressure Swing Adsorption gas purification equipment to deliver pure hydrogen meeting the exacting requirements of today’s fuel cells.

HTEC’s purified hydrogen is stored in Dynetek’s carbon-fibre wrapped aluminum cylinders, then transported “milkman style” to a transit bus fuelling station, a vehicle fuelling station and a Nuvera fuel cell powered carwash. Empty cylinders are picked up and replaced with full cylinders as scheduled.

Westport Innovations has repowered four TransLink Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses to use Hydrogen and Compressed Natural Gas (HCNG). Each bus will run on 20% hydrogen mixed with 80% compressed natural gas resulting in a cleaner burning fuel with less particulate emissions. Clean Energy has engineered an HCNG fuelling station at TransLink’s Port Coquitlam facility to ensure a technically advanced, safe, environmentally improved fuelling system.

Powertech Labs and Sacré-Davey Engineering teamed up to create a modular, space efficient hydrogen fuelling station to service a fleet of Hydrogen – Internal Combustion Engine (H-ICE) vehicles. This station is assembled offsite, positioned on a concrete pad, is modular and has no below ground tanks. Should future fuelling requirements dictate, the station is easily moveable.

Up to eight H-ICE vehicles use the fuelling station. The City of North Vancouver, District of North Vancouver (Northlands Golf Course), Mutual Construction, Port of Vancouver and Powertech Labs will thoroughly test the vehicles in a 20,000 km a year vehicle evaluation program. Performance data will be gathered through high mileage use, regular reporting on vehicle operations, and testing the vehicles as mileage increases.

HTEC’s hydrogen is also used for a 150 kW Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell to power Easywash, an environmentally friendly car wash in North Vancouver. The fuel cell, made by Nuvera, is being integrated by Sacré-Davey to provide power to the carwash cleaning bays, thus lowering Easywash’s dependence on the BC electricity grid.

The complex and comprehensive Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project shows the complete value chain of hydrogen. It is unique, progressive and real. Site and facility tours are available on request.