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  • Market size
  • Niche opportunities
  • Segmentation
  • Applications
  • Price points
  • Players (competitors, partners, customers)
  • Product specifications, requirements
  • Differentiation
  • Market share analysis
  • Distribution channel analysis
  • Regulatory impacts on product acceptance
  • Historical data
', '
  • Competitiveness
  • Systems analysis
  • Integration analysis
  • IP evaluation
  • Historical context
  • Developmental evaluation
  • Supply chain
  • Test planning and evaluation
  • QA/QC
  • Life cycle analysis
  • Technology vetting
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  • Security of supply
  • Uncertainty of demand
  • Development requirements
  • Codes and standards
  • Market specific requirements
  • Supply chain
  • Distribution channels
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  • Investor profiles
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The future hydrogen economy and fuel cell technology are two broadly intersecting areas of development.
  • Hydrogen today is a feed stock for the chemicals, fertilizer, petroleum and many other industries.
  • Hydrogen as a future energy carrier will require advances in production technology and distribution infrastructure, as well as a ten-fold expansion in total production capacity.
  • Fuel cells promise to revolutionize distributed energy production and even today are demonstrating enhances energy efficiency and environmental benefits on a local scale.
  • In high value markets such as portable power, fuel cells are coming closeto broad market introduction and can be expected to become common consumer items within the next couple of years
', '
  • Distributed Power Generation, or DPG, is a rapidly growing market, accounting for as much as 3.3 percent of all new electric generation capacity in the U.S. and 10 percent worldwide.
  • The U.S. Department of Energy defines DPG as any new installed electric power system smaller than 50 MWe.
  • The large end of this scale includes such things as boilers with steam turbines and the dispatchable aeroderivitive gas turbines being used by many utilities to meet demand for power, especially for peak shaving.
  • Smaller scale DPG includes technologies ranging from solar photovoltaics to stationary engines to the emerging fuel cell technologies.
', '

Enabling technologies are often overlooked in the world of advanced energy generation and storage. However, they represent the important components that in many cases will make the difference in whether an emerging technology can meet the requirements of consumer or regulatory acceptance. Examples might include:

Flywheels
Fuel cells		 - magnetic bearings
 - new membranes and catalysts
 - new manufacturing methods
 - sensors and controls
DPG
Hydrogen		 - inverters, power conditioning
 - advanced storage technology
Transportation Systems
  - hybrid motors
 - electric drive trains
 - regenerative braking
', '
  • Hydrogen compression is energy intensive and inefficient. Broad scale introduction of hydrogen as an energy carrier will demand advances in fields such as advanced compression technology, high pressure electrolysis and metal hydride and other exotic storage media.
  • Cleaner and more efficient utilization of fossil fuels as well as renewable energy sources such as biomass will benefit from gas-to-liquids and related technologies such as Fisher-Tropsch synthesis
  • Short term, high intensity electricity storage may be critical to significant energy efficiency gains in a wide range of commercial and industrial applications. Emerging developments in flywheel and ultracapacitor storage are examples of technologies addressing these needs.
', '
  • There are many renewable energy resources available worldwide that can be harnessed to produce electricity.
  • There are a broad range of renewable energy technologies that are commercially viable today, and available to take advantage of these worldwide resources. These include solar photovoltaic, wind, biomass, solar thermal, geothermal, tidal and wave energy and small hydroelectric generation technologies.
  • Recent advances in wind energy technology have made this the lowest cost method for producing electricity today, and with a significantly lower impact on the environment than was possible as recently as ten years ago.
  • The market for renewable energy is currently growing at double digit rates in several technology sectors
', '
  • Clean fuels represent an opportunity to displace traditional fossil fuel resources with more advanced technologies that have been proven to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants.
  • Until recently, many of these fuels were too expensive to consider, except for specialized applications and under mandate markets.
  • Advances in the technology for production of different clean fuels have brought prices down to competitive levels. Along with further technological advances and fluctuations in fossil fuel pricing, many clean fuel technologies are expected to become competitive in the retail market over the short term.
  • Regulations governing operators of fleet vehicles, including heavy trucks, off road equipment, busses and limousine services are forcing these businessesto seek out alternative fuel solutions.
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