WALLINGFORD - Proton Energy Systems, which manufactures hydrogen generation equipment, has an application before the Planning and Zoning Commission to build a commercial hydrogen vehicle fueling station in Connecticut in the parking lot of its 10 Technology Drive headquarters. The application is on the commission's agenda for Monday. The company, which was founded in 1996 and moved to its present location in 2002, has built and delivered thousands of hydrogen generating devices of various sizes to industrial customers worldwide, and foresees a major spike in hydrogen powered vehicles in the coming years. Robert Friedland, Proton's president and chief executive officer, said hydrogen vehicles are safer and better for the environment than their gasoline powered counterparts, and the energy necessary to produce a kilogram of hydrogen - which is equal to about 2.5 gallons of gasoline - is practically comparable to the amount of needed to produce a gallon of gasoline. There are only several hundred hydrogen powered vehicles on American roads, Friedland said, which can only be leased from manufactures at a high price point, but that number is expected to increase dramatically over the next several years as more and more auto manufactures develop prototype vehicles. "The automotive companies feel they will be able to launch these vehicles in the 2015 range at a similar price range for what you'll soon see in the electric car market," Friedland said, "which is several thousand more than a gasoline powered vehicle." Proton already has a version of this hydrogen fuel generation technology in place at 16 different facilities throughout the United States, including two in New York, but the Wallingford station would feature a new generation device with a larger yield capacity. Hydrogen fuel generation technology can produce about 10 to 15 kilograms of hydrogen a day, enough to fuel two to three hydrogen cars (an average hydrogen car would have a "full tank" at 5 kilograms of hydrogen), but the device at the Wallingford station would have a yield of about 65 kilograms of hydrogen a day, enough to fuel about 13 cars daily. If approved, the Wallingford station would serve as the prototype for SunHydro Fuel Stations, a chain of hydrogen fueling stations the company is hoping to expand across the nation. SunHydro's Web site includes a list of 10 future stations across the East Coast from Portland, Maine, to Miami, Fla., under what it dubs "Phase 1," with future phases extending stations from New York City to Los Angeles and beyond. Friedland said the idea for the stations came from Tom Sullivan, founder and chairman of the Lumber Liquidators flooring supplies chain, who acquired Proton for $10.2 million last August. "If we dot the area with enough of these stations, we'll begin to form the infrastructure in terms of the rollout" from automakers, Friedland said. To offset the increase in energy consumption because of the new generation station, Proton also has plans to install 75 solar panels on the roof of its facility, and will even be reimbursed for some of the expense by the Wallingford Electric Division. One of the principle reasons Proton decided to move its operations to Wallingford in 2002 is precisely because of the presence of the electric division, according to Larry Moulthrop, a vice president for the company. "We get very good rates here; the best in the state," Moulthrop said. Friedland said that if approved, the station is expected to be open by July, but because of the existing zoning regulations there was some doubt as to whether the company could actually charge for the hydrogen it would supply to cars. "Charging for the hydrogen and some of the other issues is more complicated than actually building the unit," he said. Proton Energy Systems is asking the PZC for a secondary use amendment to construct the station in the visitors' parking lot of its headquarters. Town Planner Linda Bush said her department did not have any issues with the application because Proton has ample space in its parking lot and the amount of traffic generated by the station would be negligible. Bush said she did not foresee any problem with a commercial facility, such as the station, in an industrial area. "It shouldn't be a problem because it's capped," Bush said of the amount of cars that can use the station daily. dmoran@record-journal.com (203) 317-2224
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