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[February 23, 2004]
News from the Freedonia Group: US Fuel Cells Demand to Reach $1.1 Billion in 2008
The commercial market for fuel cell products and services in the US -- including revenues associated with prototyping and test marketing activities, as well as actual product sales -- will increase tenfold to $1.1 billion in 2008 and reach $4.6 billion in 2013. Commercial demand is currently limited, but a number of viable markets for fuel cells are expected to develop over the next ten years as technological advances and economies of scale help drive costs down to competitive levels. Efforts to reduce dependence on imported oil and ongoing concerns over the environment will also contribute to fuel cell commercialization activity -- and market gains -- over the coming decade. These and other trends are presented in Fuel Cells, a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industrial market research firm.
Electric power generation is emerging as the first large-scale commercial market for fuel cells. Fuel cell systems used as remote power supplies (for campers, construction sites, oil rigs, etc.), grid support and cogeneration hold particularly good intermediate-term prospects and will account for over half of all fuel cell demand in 2008. However, the portable electronics market is expected to record the strongest advances over the next decade, rising from what are now extremely low levels of demand to become the second largest market for fuel cells.
Proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, which currently account for about half of all stack and system demand, will maintain their dominant market position through 2008 and beyond. PEM fuel cell systems operate at low temperatures and offer high energy density. Solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFC) will account for the second largest share of stack and system demand in 2008, due in large part to the high level of energy efficiency they offer, especially in cogeneration settings. Demand for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) will remain well below both PEM and SOFC sales levels, but the DMFC market will grow at an above-average pace as system use grows in portable electronics and power generation applications.
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