Moderator:
Brian Poole

FuelCon started its business building a Fuel Cell test station based on a customers' demands. Now it has been in the business of testing stations for 15 years. Currently, FuelCon is one of the world´s largest producers of test equipment for the Fuel Cell industry. Worldwide, FuelCon is comprised of two main operations located in Europe and in North America. In other regions, an expansive network of local distributors and sales representatives support FuelCon's customers.

Dr. Bernd Evers explained that the main product of FuelCon is delivering "plug and play" instruments to the Fuel Cell industry, which, to a large part, consist of standard design. But of course some of our instruments are custom designed to fulfill all the applications needs of our customers. Test stations are available in a wide range from a few Watts, e.g. testing single cells or components, up to 100 kW or even more to investigate really large stacks in the automotive industry. In addition to these expertise FuelCon is able to integrate 3rd party components like climate chambers to the test stations to increase the value for the customer. FuelCon products offer optimized and cost-saving solutions for virtually every kind of Fuel Cell technology and testing demands.
The applications range from low temperature Fuel Cells like PEM-FC and DMFC up to high temperature Fuel Cells like SOFC.

As Dr. Evers pointed out, one of FuelCon's strengths is to concentrate on the business of testing stations without intending to build Fuel Cells, even if they understand Fuel Cells in details. "We have a very good and trusted relationship with our customers and customers must not fear to see a similar design with a FuelCon label on the market" explined Dr. Evers. So you can say that one further product of FuelCon is to deliver confidentiality and protection of individual intellectual property: there is no know-how leakage and the company con do business with two clients even if these are competitors with each other.

Besides these complete stations, FuelCon offers additional equipment to those who already have a test-station and want to improve their investigation capabilities. At the interview Dr. Evers commented on the launch of the "TrueData product-line". The TrueData product line from FuelCon includes a variety of analytical tools and accessories to assist investigators in the field of Fuel Cell, battery, super-capacitor or general electrochemistry research. FuelCon's TrueData product line currently consists of the "EIS", "Load", "CVM" and "CDD" and is continuously under development for new interesting diagnostic tools. TrueData-EIS performs electrochemical impedance measurements within a frequency spectrum and current capability ideal to Fuel Cell and battery research. TrueData-LOAD is a newly developed electronic load with a unique modular design, allowing the load to be easily sized for any battery and Fuel Cell application. The electronic load comes with two ranges for both current and voltage measurement and, thus, is a perfect choice to investigate single cells as well as stacks. With TrueData-CDD, the current density distribution within a Fuel Cell can be measured and analyzed. To achieve this, a specially designed sensor-plate is inserted into the Fuel Cell measuring the current distribution with a resolution of 7 mm x 7 mm. Finally, under the trademark TrueData-CVM, FuelCon offers a new device to measure individual cell voltages within Fuel Cell stacks at rapid sampling rates. A compact housing allows the device to be positioned near the stack, therefore reducing cable length and signal distortion. The modules are available in 30, 50 and 70 channel sets, which can be combined for larger stack testing. The TrueData accessories are specifically designed with a standard digital interface to operate within FuelCon's Evaluator-series test stations using our FuelWork software, as a stand alone device or within custom-build test equipment, provided the interface is compatible. Given the common use of LabViewT-based test system, FuelCon designed the accessories to operate specifically with LabView-VIs for easy system integration.

Ending the interview, Brian Poole congratulates FuelCon for receiving the prestigious Hugo-Junkers-Innovation-Award 2006 for outstanding business performance. The award honors unique and innovative business models, which contributed to exceptional business performance, the launching of innovative products and to company's growth. Mr. Evers points out that FuelCon is very pleased to succeed in competition with 50 other companies in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. He said: "last year we won a local prize in Magdeburg (their headquarters location), this year we received an award of the federal state, ... we are looking forward to the future -- maybe next year we will win a global award".