Readers of this blog will know that I don't always have a lot of good things to say about fuel cells. By and large, I think they are long in development and very short on commercial success. That doesn't mean though that they don't make for interesting blog copy for alternative energy investors. Viewed in isolation, fuel cells do offer a combination of unique capabilities; near silent, highly reliable and very clean. No wonder military special forces types hanker after them.

So news that microstock  Voller Energy, a firm founded by the Chief Executive, the colourful Stephen Voller, is tying up with Ballard Power Systems is news indeed. Ballard will be selling its Mark1030(TM) fuel cell stacks for integration into Voller's 1kW auxiliary power units (APUs), aimed at the leisure, marine and construction markets. Under the agreement, Ballard will deliver fuel cells to Voller in 2007 and 2008. I have my doubts about them making inroads into the construction or leisure market. But will the marine product in question, the Emerald, sell?


It ought to, but not on cost-competitive grounds. Selling fuel cells to the yachting community makes eminently good sense. The old adage that if you ask how much a yacht costs, then you can't afford it has some application to fuel cells too. If the Emerald became something of a fashion statement amongst the yachting community then sales could follow in a big way. The yachting accessories market, I suspect, is a high margin business.

Meanwhile, unfortunately, both Voller and Ballard stocks are either at or near 12 month lows and like most fuel cell companies, desperately in need of some serious commercial success. At some  point in the next few years, there has got to be an upside  to fuel cells . . . otherwise a whole lot of these firms are going to go to the wall.