Hitachi Zosen goes into the large-scale fuel cell business.

Hitachi Zosen announced that it would go into the large-scale fuel cell business toward 2014 in alliance with Wartsila of Finland. The large-scale fuel cell to be built by the two companies will have power generation efficiency of 50-70% that is about two times as high as that of the existing model and sold to manufacturing plants and buildings. The company is scheduled to launch the testing machine of the state-of-the-art fuel cell called solid-oxide fuel cell within the year. It changed the substance used in generation part from polymer molecule to solid ceramic, and it is expected to increase the power generation efficiency to 50-70% and output of power generation by 10 times. The two companies will collaborate in product development and substantiative experiments. Fuel cells do not emit carbon dioxide, but the high generation cost should be solved to spread fuel cells. According to a survey, the current domestic solid-oxide fuel cell market is about 800 million yen, but it will be 250 billion yen in 2025.