TOKYO, Oct 8 Asia Pulse - Toho Gas Co. (TSE:9533) announced Thursday that it will introduce a home-use fuel cell cogeneration system on a trial basis at general households starting from the end of fiscal 2005.
The environmentally friendly, highly efficient system runs on hydrogen extracted from city gas supplied to households. It generates 1kw and also supplies hot water using heat produced when generating electricity. Hot water recovered from the fuel cell itself is also accumulated in a storage tank for use as needed in the home.
Toho Gas has been developing home-use fuel cells since 1999. In addition to conducting field tests with Ebara Ballard Corp., it will begin field tests using products from Toyota Motor Corp. (TSE:7203) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (TSE:6752) within the year. It will decide which products to use based on the test results.
The prototype costs around 20 million yen (US$180,000). The company aims to commercialize it in 2008, by which time it hopes to lower the cost to less than 1 million yen.
(Nikkei)