Fuel cell collaboration powers Washington hospital

Kohler Power Systems, part of Kohler Energy, announced its collaboration with Toyota Motor North America (Toyota) to develop and install a hydrogen fuel cell power generation system at a hospital in Goldendale, Wash.

The first Kohler Fuel Cell System - the result of a collaboration between Kohler and Toyota - will be installed at Klickitat Valley Health in Goldendale, Washington. (Photo: Kohler)

The first Kohler Fuel Cell System will be installed at Klickitat Valley Health, a hospital that serves as the principle medical center for more than 10,000 people in its district. The hospital previously announced plans to reinforce its electrical infrastructure, including backup and secondary power generation that incorporated a hydrogen fuel cell to ensure uninterrupted operations. The fuel cell system will be used to support the hospital’s power strategy and to meet its preparedness needs.

The Kohler Fuel Cell System is designed to be used for prime, peak shaving and emergency situations and can be scaled or customized by application to meet the specific needs of customers, whether for individual installations or entire facility complexes. The system combines Kohler’s power generation control platform and system integration experience with a fuel cell module from Toyota.

“Kohler is committed to investing in new technologies to help our customers achieve their resiliency goals without sacrificing their climate-related objectives, and fuel cells are a hugely promising opportunity – both on their own, and when combined with other complementary technologies for more flexible power strategies, such as microgrids,” said Charles Hunsucker, Kohler Power Systems President. “Kohler has a strong relationship with Toyota, and we greatly value its commitment to clean energy and its technological expertise in fuel cells.”

Toyota has consolidated various components from a second-generation Toyota Mirai passenger vehicle fuel cell system into a single, compact fuel cell module. The module includes an improved fuel cell stack and the elements responsible for the generation of electricity, system cooling and onboard power control. It can be integrated and scaled into a variety of power plant applications.

“Toyota has been exploring various applications of our fuel cell technology and this opportunity with Kohler highlights the decarbonization opportunities that hydrogen as a fuel can provide for customers,” said Chris Yang, Group Vice President, Business Development, Toyota. “Our fuel cell technology can be scaled and used to power a wide variety of products beyond transportation, and it does so without any emissions except water.”

The Kohler controller will continuously monitor and manage operating conditions to optimize the performance of the fuel cell as well as protect it from damage. The control system is designed to be versatile and customizable to ensure it will function as the customer expects and interoperate with building management systems (BMS), Kohler stated.

The upcoming installation at Klickitat Valley Health marks a significant step toward offering a commercially available product that will help customers with their decarbonization goals, Kohler added. Kohler will complete the system integration and balance of plant for the hospital installation to ensure all supporting components and auxiliary systems needed to deliver energy operate together safely and reliably and within a turnkey package.