Acta : Power successfully delivers back-up power during blackout

ACTA S.P.A. (AIM; ACTA), the hydrogen energy company, announces that its back-up Power system successfully supplied electricity to a mobile telecommunication base station in Cairo ensuring the uninterrupted provision of mobile services for this customer during the recent electricity black out across the city.

On 04 September 2014, Cairo suffered a major electricity outage causing major disruption across the City for almost 12 hours, including taking more than 2,000 mobile phone towers offline, according to a statement by Vodafone Egypt, the country's leading mobile operator (source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Sep-04/269514-massive-blackout-in-egypt-hits-cairo-rush-hour.ashx#ixzz3ChxB8N4i).

ACTA is pleased to announce that its Back-Up Power solution, the Acta Power, which was first deployed with a major mobile phone operator in Egypt in October 2013, performed exactly to specification thereby enabling the customer to deliver the continuous provision of mobile services throughout the electricity blackout.

The back-up power unit deployed with this particular customer consisted of a 1,000L/h proprietary ACTA electrolyser with an on-board 4kW third party fuel cell. As can be seen in Figure 1 (please see link below), which was automatically generated by the on-board reporting software, the ACTA electrolyser was fully operational prior to the blackout ensuring an optimum level of Hydrogen was generated onsite and stored in the system ready for use.

On detecting the power outage, the ACTA control system instantaneously started the fuel cell to convert the stored hydrogen into electricity via the on-board 4kW fuel cell. The fuel cell operated continuously for approximately three hours constantly adapting to the power demands placed on the unit. Finally, once power was restored to the unit, the ACTA electrolyser can be seen to immediately begin refilling the hydrogen storage tanks thereby providing back-up power protection from any future power outage without any onsite visit or maintenance.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW FIGURE 1

Paolo Bert, CEO of Acta, commented: "Our customer and local partner have been impressed with the performance of the Acta Power back-up system, which responded immediately to the power outage and kept the customer's base station online throughout the black-out period.  Although black-outs are frequent in this region, this has been a major power disruption and has helped to underline the superiority of the Acta Power self-recharging fuel cell system over traditional battery solutions, which suffer from limited run-times and are vulnerable to deterioration in hot climates."

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About Acta S.p.A.

Acta S.p.A. is a developer and manufacturer of a range of clean energy products.  Based on its world-leading expertise in alkaline membrane technology, the Company has developed a unique range of low-cost, compact hydrogen generators (electrolysers) which produce pure, dry compressed hydrogen at high efficiency from renewable or grid power.

In April 2013 Acta launched the Acta Power, an integrated electrolyser and fuel cell system for use in back-up power and renewable energy storage applications.  Best understood as a "Hydrogen Battery", the system converts energy from renewable or grid power when it is available and stores it in the form of hydrogen, and then converts the hydrogen back to electrical power when needed due to grid black-out or lack of solar / wind power.

This system has extensive application as a back-up power unit for telecommunications base stations, where it competes on cost against traditional battery and diesel solutions, while offering a cleaner solution and better service.  In particular, the use of rainwater and the generation of hydrogen on-site removes the cost and logistical barriers of fuel delivery, while also avoiding the theft risk associated with diesel, methanol and battery systems.

The supply of fuel cell back-up power systems for telecommunications base stations represents a large and fast-growing market, especially in extensively bad-grid and off-grid locations such as in Asia and Africa.  Battery sales to the Chinese telecoms industry are currently valued at $4.7 bn to $7.8 bn per annum (Fuel Cell Today, China).

Acta holds a portfolio of patents and patent applications on its key technologies, manufactures its products through a combination of production, component subcontracting, and final product assembly and quality control, and has established distribution channels through partnerships in China, India, SE Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East, Germany, UK, USA and South America.

Acta S.p.A. is based near Pisa, Italy, and was admitted to trading on AIM in October 2005.

www.actaspa.com