Hartford Business Journal

8 CONNECTICUT GREEN GUIDE • SPRING 2016 www.CTGreenGuide.com to customers that there won't be any manufacturing disruptions. FuelCell will need to find enough demand to make up for the 30 megawatts it has been sending to Posco. "They do need to fill two holes," Osborne said. Seeking profits To date, no publicly traded commercial fuel cell mak- er has been profitable, which has driven much specula- tion on who, if anyone, might be first. It's not clear if it will be FuelCell, but the company's in contention. "It's difficult for us to really put a timeframe on that," said Kurt Goddard, FuelCell's vice president of investor re- lations, who added that the more large power-plant deals the company can ink the sooner profitability could come. The company is still losing tens of millions of dollars per year, but it has managed to pare losses from a high in 2008. Its $32.6 million loss last year was its lowest since 2001. Revenue peaked at nearly $188 million in 2013, but fell in 2014 and again 2015. That downward trend could be overcome this year, if the company's revenue guid- ance of $170 million to $210 million holds true. (This story went to press before FuelCell's Q1 earnings report, expected in March.) Bottone said he's confident in FuelCell's long-term strategy, which is to chase large customers with high- power demands. An example is a recent deal to install a fuel cell plant at Pfizer's Groton campus. The company is also pursu- ing multi-megawatt projects in New York, California and Europe which would sell power to utility companies. "They're not all going to happen tomorrow, but I'll tell you they're all good, large projects that fit that mold for us," Bottone said. Osborne said big projects like that would help Fuel- Cell reach the demand it needs to turn a profit. In trying to spur adoption, FuelCell has brought on multiple investment partners to finance plant construc- tion for customers. And it has reduced the per-kilowatt cost of its products through technology enhancements and scaling up its supply chain purchasing. "We can do this, but there are no shortcuts," Bottone said. "Everything is in place to get this company to prof- itability with a little more [project] volume." Challenges to adoption Fuel cells reform hydrogen from natural gas and com- bine it with oxygen to create an electrochemical reaction that produces electricity, heat, water and carbon dioxide (but less CO2 than coal or gas plants). There's also virtu- ally no sulfur oxides or mono-nitrogen oxide emissions. Hartford Hospital's 1.4-megawatt fuel cell was installed in 2013. PHOTO | PABLO ROBLES FuelCell vice presidents Tony Leo, Neil Aiello and Kurt Goddard in front of a fuel cell stack in the Torrington manufacturing plant. PHOTO | MATT PILON

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