AIM-listed fuel cell tech company Ceres Power (CWR) today announced it has entered into a partnership with German giant Bosch.
In an RNS released today, the Horsham-based company revealed it has signed a strategic collaboration with Bosch to help develop its fuel-cell technology SteelCell®.
Ceres Power’s SteelCell® technology generates power from conventional fuels like natural gas and future green fuels like biogas, ethanol and hydrogen.
The AIM company’s tech is a form of solid-oxide fuel-cell (SOFC) technology, which uses an electrochemical reaction in the fuel cell stack to convert fuel such as natural gas or hydrogen into electricity - helping to reduce emissions from power stations.
The Bosch partnership will help enable the company scale up and mass manufacture SteelCell® for use in things like small city-based power stations, factories, data centres and charge points for electric vehicles.
Ceres Power CEO Phil Caldwell said: “The vision for our partnership with Bosch is to set a new industry standard for solid-oxide fuel cells, leading to widespread adoption in distributed power supplies.
“By combining Ceres’ unique Steel Cell technology with Bosch’s engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain strength we will establish a strong partnership that can make our technology even more competitive and prepare it for potential mass production.”
The agreement will provide “very significant staged revenues to Ceres through technology transfer and licensing and longer-term royalties on 5kW SteelCell® stacks, as well as initial engineering services.”
Ceres Power said the initial value of this will be around £20m until 2020.
With the partnership, Bosch is also taking a 4% equity stake in Ceres Power with a £9m strategic equity investment in the UK company.
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Stefan Hartung, Bosch’s Energy & Building Technology-focused board member said: “Bosch believes that the highly efficient fuel cell, with its very low emissions, has an important role to play in energy systems’ security of supply and flexibility.
"Fuel-cell technology will bring the move to alternative energy a step closer, and we will be working on this with our development partner Ceres Power.”
News about the collaboration was first announced through a joint development agreement (JDA) on 10 January 2018, but Bosch was not named for confidentiality reasons.
In addition to Bosch, Ceres Power is also working with Weichai Power, Nissan, Honda and Cummins to embed SteelCell® into power systems.
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