January 3^rd, 2006

Sophisticated Test Station Delivered to HNEI

FuelCon recently delivered a sophisticated fuel cell test station to the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) of the University of Hawaii after a successfully bid last year.

The station requirement specified the need for fully automated, unattended operation. In addition, the station has a CAN interface to allow "Hardware- in - Loop" (HiL) operation.. In the HiL mode, the set points (ie. for currents and flows) are provided by an external simulation model and dynamically transmitted (100msec) via CAN interface to the test station. At the same time, the test station provides the status of the test item (ie. voltage, temperature, etc.) to the simulation. The simulation model takes these values as actual values and generates new set point values. In addition to this dynamic simulation mode of operation, the test station continuously monitors the test item and station for operating errors protecting the test item, station and facility from damage. "The Hawaii Natural Energy Institute of the University of Hawaii purchased the Evaluator test station from FuelCon since FuelCon was able to best meet the stringent requirements that HNEI specified for a dynamic test station. In addition, FuelCon provided the best competitive offering." commented Dr. Robert Moore, Director of Fuel Cell Research.

Blair Heffelfinger, General Manager of FuelCon Systems Inc., "We are very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the HNEI given the expertise of their staff. Since HiL and CAN bus interface are standard features that we offer to our automaker customers for running drive cycle simulation, we are please to offer this functionality to HNEI to support their research program. In addition, HNEI will benefit from having our TrueData-EIS impedance analyzer integrated into their test station allowing fully automated, unattended frequency sweeps and analysis."