UTC Role In WTC Project

Otis Elevator and Carrier are the big names in buildings at parent United Technologies Corp. But UTC's smallest business unit has landed the company's latest construction coup.
South Windsor-based UTC Power will provide supplemental power generation for one of New York City's most prominent and emotionally charged construction projects, the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, company and New York officials said Wednesday.
UTC Power will provide 12 fuel cells for the four main towers planned within the 16-acre trade center site, including the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower, now scheduled for completion in 2012.
The deal, for $10.6 million, would produce the single greatest concentration of power — 4.8 megawatts — generated by UTC fuel cells at one site and one of the biggest fuel cell installations in the world, the parties said.

The company's biggest existing installation — seven 200-kilowatt fuel cells capable of generating 1.4 megawatts — is also in New York state, at a Verizon facility on Long Island. One megawatt is enough power for 800 to 1,000 average homes.

The generating capacity of the fuel cells at the trade center site represents a small fraction of the total power needs of the planned towers. But the use of fuel cells in so prominent a project appears to offer a significant endorsement of the technology, which has struggled to find widespread market acceptance.

The New York Power Authority, which negotiated the trade center deal, is the first announced customer for UTC Power's newest fuel cell unit, which can produce 400 kilowatts of power, twice as much as its predecessor. The new model is not yet in production, but the company is scheduled to deliver the first units for the Freedom Tower next year.

"This is the day you dream about," UTC Power President Jan van Dokkum said in an interview after the announcement. The company expects to announce several other deals soon, he said.
Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity, heat and water. The process requires natural gas, but doesn't burn it, and gives off almost no carbon dioxide. The fuel cells will recycle their heat for use in the trade center towers' heating and cooling systems, further reducing demand on the power grid.

Promoted for their ability to generate electric power independent of fossil fuel-burning power plants and without creating hazardous byproducts, fuel cells have yet to spark widespread demand, in part because of their expense.
UTC Power declined to say how much it charges for a complete fuel cell unit. At $10.6 million for the delivery and commissioning of 12 fuel cells, the power authority would pay nearly $900,000 for each.

Since the early 1990s, UTC Power has sold about 270 fuel cells for use in buildings. Some are no longer in service. The company also makes them for use in vehicles, such as city buses.
UTC Power expects that rising energy costs will make fuel cells more attractive and that as production volume increases, prices will come down.
Michael Saltzman, a spokesman for the power authority, was unable to say Wednesday what percentage of the towers' total estimated power need would be met by the fuel cells. He said it was small.

The authority, which provides electricity for use by government agencies in New York City, has long been an advocate of fuel cells as one method of reducing reliance on the electric grid. It has bought them from UTC Power for use in several facilities, mostly small ones, such as wastewater treatment plants, hospitals and the Central Park police station, which relies entirely on a fuel cell for power.

A UTC Power fuel cell unit will soon be installed at the Bronx Zoo's lion house.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is the landlord for the trade center site and is building the Freedom Tower, the first of the towers to rise at the Lower Manhattan site. Developer Larry Silverstein is building three other towers on the site and others in the area.
Otis has contracts to provide at least 87 elevators and two escalators for trade center redevelopment projects, a spokeswoman said. Carrier officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.