McPhy Energy Signs Contract With Enel Group for Solid Hydrogen Storage

GRENOBLE, France, February 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- McPhy Energy, a leader in solid hydrogen storage technology, has announced that the company has signed a contract with the Enel Group, Italy's largest power company and Europe's second listed utility by installed capacity, for the supply of a solid hydrogen storage solution. The system has a capacity of 2 kilograms of solid hydrogen, stored in the form of magnesium hydrides (which do not require compression), offering an innovative solution for safe, reversible hydrogen storage, with excellent energy efficiency.

A prototype of the system design was validated through a series of tests at the CEA-LITEN (the French national Laboratory of Innovation for New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials in Grenoble, France). The test tank was coupled to an electrolyser and to a fuel cell, successfully demonstrating the storage of renewable energy.

Enel will integrate McPhy's solution in a full, innovative technology framework, which includes wind and solar technologies, as well as hydrogen production and storage. McPhy's storage system will be located at Enel's research center in Livorno. The project will be led by a group of researchers from the Enel Research Center of Pisa.

Enel's interest in hydrogen and the technology developed by McPhy Energy confirms McPhy's strategy of developing industrial energy storage applications in collaboration with the industry's major players.

"With this order, McPhy has achieved the first milestone in our business development plan," says Pascal Mauberger, CEO of McPhy Energy. "Enel's confidence in our innovative energy storage technology enables us to look to the next phase of large-scale deployment on the grid."

About McPhy Energy

McPhy Energy was created in 2008, with the mission to industrialize and commercialize an innovative solid hydrogen storage technology using magnesium hydrides, which offers unique advantages compared to other hydrogen storage solutions. The technology addresses the merchant hydrogen and renewable energy markets. McPhy owns exclusive rights on a portfolio of unique patents, which results from over 8 years of research at the CNRS and CEA, in partnership with Joseph Fourier University. A member of the TENERRDIS cluster, McPhy Energy is involved as a partner or a subcontractor in several research projects. For further information, see http://www.mcphy.com.