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A major London university contracted MEMS Power Generation to provide temporary power for the continuation of medical research and experiments during maintenance work.

MEMS supplied a total of 4100kVA to six buildings on the university site that house 20 years of experiments that cannot be affected by ongoing site maintenance.

Engineers installed two 800kVA generators, that will work in parallel redundancy, and 2600kg of cabling for total resilience. This was followed by two 1250kVA generators, which will work in parallel to power the site’s main building.

MEMS Power Generation, commented: “The University is renowned for carrying out a vast amount of medical research, so the temporary power we supplied needed to ensure that experiments and testing could carry on as normal during the maintenance period. If power had been lost, potentially 20 yeas of experiments could have been lost.

"Our aim was to ensure that the buildings never lost power for more than 15 minutes on installation of the temporary equipment and on reinstatement of the mains supply.”

Swedish engine maker Scania has launched a small range of gensets primarily aimed at prime power applications for the mining and construction industries.

Scania Gensets are available in two versions, open or  closed canopy, ranging from 50 Hz 250-600 kVA and 60 Hz 280-665 kVA and powered by Scania 9.3 litre/5 cylinder or 12.7 litre/6 cylinder diesel engines. Scania Gensets will add a third engine to the range, a 15.6 litre/V8 with a power capacity of 800 kVA at 1800 rpm in 60 Hz later this year.

Unveiling the new product line at Middle East Electricity in Dubai on 17 February, Scania said the gensets will be packaged by Northern Ireland’s AJ Power with alternators provided by Mecc Alte and Cummins (Stamford). Cautious about brand reputation, Scania said potential distributors will be required to meet strict ‘Market Prepared’ regulations.

Robert Sobocki, Senior Vice Preident of Scania Engines told Critical Power Online: “Many of our mining and construction industry engine customers told us that they wanted a complete solution, so this has been driven by market demand.

“We are targeting all regions with the exception of North and South America. We see particularly strong demand in Southeast Asia.” Sobocki added Scania had already supplied a number of complete genset packages to Myanmar.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has ordered Southern California Edison (SCE) to procure at least 50 MW of energy storage capacity as part of a plan to supply as much as 1,800 MW of electrical capacity in the area.

The requirement is the first of its kind for a utility in the state, according to Janice Lin, executive director of the California Energy Storage Alliance.

Under the CPUC's decision, energy storage resources must be considered "along with preferred resources" including energy efficiency, demand response and distributed generation, consistent with the clean energy resource procurement priorities embodied in California's Energy Action Plan.

Lin said: "This landmark decision represents a major breakthrough for energy storage market development in California and nationwide, and  provides a much needed market signal that energy storage will be considered as a key asset class to help California address its long term local reliability needs." 

UK-based access equipment and systems provider Youngman has launched a hydrogen-fuelled LED lighting tower that is powered by a PEM fuel cell system.

Youngman claims the Ecolite-H2 unit, which runs on a BOC Hymera fuel cell, is the first time fuel cells have been integrated into a low energy, low voltage LED system.

The tower’s fully-autonomous run-time is 50-900 hours, depending upon its cylinder configuration.

It can be started and stopped remotely, produces zero on-site emissions and operates silently, delivering a number of important benefits over incumbent diesel-fuelled technology.

A campaign has been launched to obtain more support for British-made hydrogen fuel cells under a national renewable energy feed-in tariff scheme.

According to Energy and Environmental Management, the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (UKHFCA) said British and European companies are lagging behind those in the US and Korea in terms of government support for baseload power from fuel cell technology.  The US Department of Energy recently announced $150m tax credits for clean energy manufacturers, including manufacturers of fuel cells, in addition to a previously announced programme of $2.3bn of tax credits.

Currently, some CHP (combined heat and power) installations are eligible for support under the Renewable Obligation scheme, but there is no support for low carbon hydrogen fuel cells across the power, transport and heat sectors. The trade association believes that small scale low carbon electricity from fuel cells should be rewarded with a £0.17/kWh ($0.26) generation tariff, up to the 5 MW installation limit set by the support scheme.

Ian Williamson, chief executive of AFC Energy and director of the UKHFCA, said: "The UK is a leader in fuel cell technology and AFC Energy wants it to remain that way," he said. "This is about both energy efficiency and UK jobs. That is why we have urged the government to extend the feed-in-tariff scheme to cover fuel cells."