Ready for heavy lifting? Test program at Wal-Mart suggests fuel cell lift trucks may be ready for the real world

Diesel Progress North American Edition, April, 2007 by Bill Siuru

While it may be years before fuel cell-powered cars travel routinely on our highways, fuel cell-powered forklifts and pallet trucks are already in use in warehouses. Compared to current material handling equipment typically equipped with lead-acid batteries, fuel cell lift trucks in many cases are demonstrating significantly better performance.

One example is the dozen hydrogen fuel cell-powered pallet trucks used at two Wal-Mart distribution centers in Ohio. Recently, a four-month field trial was completed using Cellex's CX-P150 fuel cell unit to power pallet rider trucks. Established in 1998, Cellex Power, based in Vancouver, British Columbia and Ohio, is developing a family of fuel cell power systems designed to transparently replace lead-acid batteries used in counterbalanced, reach, and pallet trucks.

The Cellex CX-P150 power units use Ballard Mark 9 SSL fuel cell stacks that produce an average of 2 kW of power. Ballard originally developed the Mark 9 fuel cell for automotive applications, but it can be configured for other mobile and stationary power applications as well. The stacks are available in power increments up to 21 kW. In this configuration, the fuel cell is used in conjunction with nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries.

For the CX-P150 application, the units were installed in Crown and Nissan Barrett pallet trucks without major modification to the trucks themselves. This makes repowering easy, as the CX-P150 unit simply fits in the same space as the traditional battery.

In the test program, the 12 pallet trucks worked in continuous operation, logging more than 18,500 hours of active work with more than 2100 indoor fueling operations done by the pallet truck operators. Pallet truck operators could fuel their trucks in less than two minutes, and the indoor fuel dispensing area of 200 sq.ft. (compared to 4000 sq.ft. for a lead acid battery room) allowed operators to easily fuel their trucks quickly and safely.

High-pressure hydrogen was dispensed from the fueling station through a quick-connect nozzle into the 3600 psi on-board tank on the CX-P150 lift truck.

In the test program, trucks powered by the CX-P150 system showed productivity benefits including longer run times and shorter fueling times when compared to trucks equipped with lead acid batteries.

According to Johnnie Dobbs, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of Logistics and Supply Chain, the beta trial success is a significant milestone for Cellex from Wal-Mart's perspective. "We really put these Cellex-powered vehicles to the test in our pallet truck applications and they did the job," he said. "Our pallet truck operators were most pleased with their performance and the ease of use. We now understand that operationally this new technology can be utilized in this application."

The next step is an "early commercial" stage whereby Cellex will begin selling to customers like Wal-Mart.

According to Cellex, the global market for electric lift trucks is growing on average by 5% per year with the annual total market for fuel cell power solutions at more than 700,000 units. Most distribution centers typically average 1 million sq.ft. in size with fleets of 100 to 300 trucks per site with two to three shifts and two to three dedicated batteries per truck. Large operations such as those run by Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target, Sysco, SuperValu, Albertson's, Ahold and others possess total fleets of between 40,000 and 50,000 lift trucks, making it a large potential market for fuel cell systems.

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Bill Siuru, PhD, PE, is a Diesel Progress field editor based in Temecula, Calif.