17 December 2015
DETAILS
Hydrogen fueling stations using Linde technology
have reached a major milestone
– more than 1,000,000 fills
for the fuel-cell driven material handling equipment
at the BMW Manufacturing Co. LLC plant
in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Mike Beckman,
Vice president of Hydrogen Fueling-Linde North America
“This is the most hydrogen fills at a single location anywhere
in the world,”
“We are truly proud to reach this impressive milestone
at the BMW plant. Equally important is that our technology
can help advance sustainability and lower emissions
while also helping to improve the bottom line.
Hydrogen is one of the most promising alternative fuels
because it is safe, economic and efficient.”
BMW now operates more than 350 forklifts
to service the plant’s production and logistics functions,
making it one of the largest fuel cell forklift sites in the world.
“While Linde hydrogen fueling systems
involve very sophisticated technology, the filling operation
is designed to be relatively simple and
is much like putting gasoline into your car,”
“This simplicity is a critical aspect to
the success of hydrogen as a fuel.”
Since 2010, the six million square foot BMW production facility
has powered its entire hydrogen-fuel cell fleet
with Linde technology.
Duncan Seaman,
BMW Group’s Vice President of Operations
for the Americas Region
“BMW’s relationship with Linde North America
has greatly supported
our company’s total commitment to sustainability.
It has helped BMW to maintain
its clear vision
to reach our goal of using renewable energy
as much as possible throughout the plant site,”
“The annual energy avoidance of 4.1 million kW/hours
and dramatic reductions in fueling time has positioned
our hydrogen fuel cell material handling program
to be an industry benchmark.”
The lead acid batteries that formerly powered
BMW’s lifts and trucks
were replaced with
GenDrive hydrogen fuel cell power solutions
from
Latham, N.Y.-based Plug Power Inc.,
Linde’s associate in the BMW installation
and the leading provider of hydrogen based fuel cells
in the material handling market.
BMW is able to boost productivity in two ways:
* reducing fueling time and
* increasing equipment performance.
Gen-Drive-powered trucks with hydrogen using
Linde’s equipment takes an operator less than three minutes,
compared with 15-20 minutes to change out a battery.
Also, power levels and performance from fuel cells
do not degrade over time, as they do with lead-acid batteries.
BMW also is able to reduce its total electricity demand,
since no battery recharging is required,
and eliminate the environmental disposal costs
for lead-acid batteries
Andy Marsh,
CEO for Plug Power Inc.
“At its core, Plug Power’s fuel cell solutions
are designed to save customers, like BMW,
time and money,
bringing tremendous fleet improvements
to automotive manufacturing customers
that are not realized when lead-acid batteries
are powering the electric lift truck fleet,”
“Not only do GenDrive fuel cells
outperform lead-acid batteries,
they also improve lift truck uptime.”
Dave Read
(Business Development Manager – Hydrogen Fuel Markets)
“Because of the way it is produced, the hydrogen
supplied to BMW is sustainable with only a small carbon footprint
incurred during shipping,”
”The hydrogen is a by-product of a sodium chlorate plant
which Linde purifies, compresses and liquefies
using electricity produced from renewable hydropower.”
Linde contacts for this press release
Amy Ficon
Linde corporate communications
US Phone 908.771.1491
Email: amy.ficon@linde.com (mailto:amy.ficon@linde.com)
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