Up till now all of TeliaSonera’s Swedish exchanges, along with the large majority of those operated by telcos worldwide, have been powered by the conventional grid, and what generally happens in the event of a power outage is that backup systems – batteries or generators – cut in to power the exchanges and maintain service.

Last week TeliaSonera inaugurated a two-year trial of fuel cells at an exchange located in the north of Småland province in southern Sweden . The telco’s aim in testing fuel cells in the backup role is to increase the operating reliability of the network and lessen the environmental impact of the backup system when there is a power failure. TeliaSonera believes fuel cells are more reliable and efficient in operation than today's backup power systems, and have lower operating costs. The technology is also more environmentally friendly and, because fuel cells lack moving parts, wear-and-tear and maintenance are minimised, leading to reduced operating and maintenance costs in the long term.

"We will carefully monitor and evaluate the tests and we expect the fuel cell system to minimise disturbances when there are major power failures or other types of external disturbances. Another important advantage of this technology is the environmental benefits", says Ove Alm, network manager at TeliaSonera Sweden .

TeliaSonera isn’t the only telco interested in fuel cells. Last month, for example, Verizon announced it had built and was operating the largest fuel cell project of its kind in the USA to supply electric power at a large call-switching centre and office building in Garden City, New York. The Verizon central switching office in the building provides local, long-distance and data services over about 35,000 phone lines in the area. In addition, the building houses some of the company's administrative offices and one of Verizon's regional Network Surveillance Operations Centers (NSOCs). Although fuel cell technology is being exploited in conjunction with the existing commercial power grid and existing backup power systems Verizon is anticipating savings of some US$250,000 annually in commercial power costs.

"The fuel cells we are using here today help Verizon provide customers even more reliable communications services, whether for phone calls or high-speed data transmission, and at the same time the power is environmentally friendly and efficiently produced", Verizon chairman and ceo and Ivan Seidenberg said. "We now look forward to studying this remarkable technology as it is being used over a period of years on such a large scale for the first time".

Hard sell
So what’s a fuel cell? As Verizon notes, fuel cells are a technology first pioneered by NASA for manned space flight. Basically they generate electrical power through the combination of fuel and an oxidant, giving off water and heat as by-products. US-Israeli fuel cell specialist Medis Technologies Ltd says that, unlike conventional batteries that convert a chemical reaction into electrical power, a fuel cell converts the energy of a fuel – hydrogen, oxygen, natural gas, methanol, ethanol, or petrol – and an oxidant – air or oxygen – into energy. Another fuel cell specialist, Canada ’s Hydrogenics Corp, adds that a conventional battery is only capable of storing power, whereas a fuel cell can generate it so long the fuel is being supplied. As such, says Hydrogenics, the fuel cell system has similarities to an internal combustion engine, except that it operates very efficiently at low temperatures and with minimal moving parts.

Way to go
Although tests with fuel cells in telecommunications network/stationary applications, including exchange backup and cell site power, have been progressed for a number of years, arguably the widespread commercial use of the technology is closer to hand for mobile applications. Indeed, according to Jim Balcom, president and ceo of fuel cell membrane specialist PolyFuel, current fuel cell technology costs between US$3,000 and $5,000 per kW. This is in the economic range for micro-power applications, but out-of-range-to-marginal for stationary applications ($500 to $2,000 per kW) and wildly out of range for automotive (currently $20 to $50 per kW for petrol).

Balcom believes that micro-power fuel cells, designed to power portable electronic devices such as cell phones, PDAs and laptop computers, will be the key technical and economic driver for the entire fuel cell market. "According to recent published studies, portable device power demand is increasing three times faster than the rate of battery improvement", Balcom told the audience at the 9th Grove Fuel Cell Symposium recently held in London. "This gives rise to what we call a ‘run-time gap’ – the difference in the demand for energy in devices like PDAs, Smartphones, laptops, or MP3 players, and that actually available with contemporary battery technology. By 2010, the demand for energy is forecast to be four times that which is available". The result, said Balcom, is that users of contemporary personal electronic devices will experience run times measured in tens of minutes versus the hours that they will demand. "This is the run-time gap", he said, "and it is going to drive portable fuel cells to mass commercialisation years before automotive fuel cells become economically viable, or stationary power fuel cells become widely deployed".

Certainly as handsets and Smartphones gain features such as colour LCDs, GPS, cameras, MP3 capabilities, faster processors, and high-speed Internet access, the terminal power market will need to continue to evolve. Power is also one of the technical issues confronting the nascent fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) industry.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the attractions of micro-power fuel cells are not lost on certain key industry players, who are ramping up efforts to develop these devices. "Fujitsu, Hitachi , IBM, LG, NEC, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba, among others, have publicly acknowledged that they are actively working on systems", reports Balcom.

Prototypes proliferate
This year alone has seen some interesting developments in the handset fuel cell field. In July, for example, NTT DoCoMo, together with Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd, announced it had developed a new and improved prototype methanol fuel cell for 3G FOMA handsets. The new prototype supported eight hours of continuous talk time - three times the capacity of the existing prototype – but had the same 190gm weight. Again, in August, KDDI, together with partners Toshiba Corporation and Hitachi Ltd, introduced two prototype mobile phones powered by fuel cells. The model co-developed by Toshiba and KDDI was based on the au handset A5509T, and the system used was a hybrid type, with power supplied by a compact fuel cell and fuel tank at the back of the handset, plus an internal Lithium Ion battery. This apparently uses high-concentration methanol to achieve a battery capacity 2.5 times the conventional value with a single refill.

Nor is the interest confined to high-tech pioneering Asia . In June Medis Technologies disclosed that it had entered into a co-operation agreement with one of the largest mobile operators in the USA . The purpose was to market test and introduce to the market Medis’ fuel cell Power Packs as a secondary power source for portable electronic devices offered by the mobile operator. This unnamed mobile operator then had a customer base of over 50mn subscribers.

And equally discreet was a deal of similar scope involving the same supplier and a ‘broadly affiliated’ UK but unnamed mobile telephone operator in July. "As we have previously announced, by entering into this kind of contractual relationship, the mobile operator is helping to further our market seeding efforts by introducing our Power Pack product to their customer base", said Medis Technologies chairman and ceo Robert K. Lifton. "We anticipate the signing of additional co-operation agreements which will further expand our outreach to the enterprise and broad consumer markets".

The ‘broadly affiliated’ UK operator is described as a recent 3G entrant into the wireless market and one that prides itself on offering ‘…an unrivalled package of voice content and video services at an unrivalled and sustainable price’.

No prizes, then, for guessing it’s 3 UK .
John Williamson