Ceramic Fuel Cells Die Rakekte kommt! Der Anfang

was keine Nachrichten bewirken, erleben wir  gerade und es hat den Anschein,
das viele Anleger das Handtuch schmeißen. Betrachtet man im allgemeinen die
Technologiewerte, so sieht es überall nicht rosig aus. Aber gerade diese Situation
ist es, die die Rakete zum zünden bringen kann. Wenn wir zum wiederholten mal
die 0,10 halten sollten, sehe ich sehr gute Chancen. Wie  tokatci sagt, Geduld !!!


mal gewinnt man
mal verliert man, wer will das schon

nen schluss unter .16 AUD würde niedrigere Kurse aktivieren. Ist aber nicht weiter verwunderlich, an den Weltbörsen steht die nächste Korrektur ins haus.

bei 0.15 scheint doch eine kräftige Unterstützung zu liegen!?

rund 10Mio Aktien sind heute in Sydney gehandelt worden, leider in der letzten Minute
800 T Stück wieder abgestoßen, vermute mal  Gewinnmitnahmen, mal schauen wie sich
das heute bei uns niederschlägt.
Das Volumen zeigt aber ganz deutlich,das Bewegung in CFCL ist und das sehe ich
persönlich als positives Zeichen. Stellt aber keine Kaufempfehlung dar.

mal gewinnt man
mal verliert man, wer will das schon

Liebe "Leidensgenossen" ;-)

Ich habe das Ding schon länger im Blick und dachte es gehe nun langsam los. Naja bin nun heftig im Minus mit dieser Position. Meine schlimmste Investition in diesem Jahr bis jetzt. Hab nach dem dem Anstieg mit grossem Volumen gekauft.

Die News sind doch ganz gut, aber mir fehlen Erfahrungsberichte von den Konsumenten. Gibt es das? Oder ist das Ding noch gar nicht funktionstüchtig? Und wie viel soll das Teil denn mal kosten?

Ist da was zu erfahren?

Bin jetzt sehr unsicher und will mir die täglichen Verluste ersparen. Obwohl... soviel wert hat die Investition ja eh nicht mehr...

Wenn ich überzeugt wäre würde ich aber nochmals nachlegen.

Herzlichen Dank und viele Grüsse

(Erster Eintrag bei Ariva!)

- Gutes Konzept

- Für die Zukunft ausbaubare Kapazitäten

- Gute Partner in vielen Ländern

- Viele Subventionen (besonders England und Deutschland)

- Japaner werden wohl die ersten sein die die Geräte benutzen denn bei denen laufen diese Brennstoffzellen Anlagen auch schon

Nachteile:

- Durch die Finanzkrise gebeuteltes Gesamtumfeld

- Die Firma braucht noch Kapital um die Anlage in die Großproduktion zu fördern

- Investoren sind im Moment Vorsichtig

- Die Staaten geben Subventionen (Wenn sich das nicht ändert, siehe Ausgaben Deutschland)

- CFC wird erst durch die Decke gehen WENN:

Die Anlagen für den Hausgebrauch Wirtschaftlich sind (Subventionen und Bedarf muss gedeckt sein und Investoren bereit)

Und natürlich die Privaten Käufer auch Geld haben was im Moment bischen schwierig ist wie man sieht. Denn CFC hatte, hat und wird nach den Aussagen von Herrn Obernitz erstmal AUSSCHLIESSLICH nur im Eigenheim bereich Ihre Ziele gesteckt. Und die Käufer dieser Geräte sind eben Eigenheimbesitzer.

Also wird die Explosion denke ich erst Anfang 2011 losgehen. Wer Traden möchte sollte sich andere Werte suchen. Wer ein fast sichere Kapitalanlage haben möchte kann hier DENKE ICH getrost zugreifen.

Alles nur meine MEINUNG und keine Kauf oder Verkaufsempfehlung 

Wieviel Brisanz im Marktumfeld liegt seht ihr HIER:

Sprich uns wird nun mehr aufgebürdet (Europa)! Die Amis treiben ihr spiel und der nächste EU Kandidat wartet schon mit den miesen. Muss nicht so sein aber dieses Hüh und Hott macht den Markt MÜRBE. Da ist es eben verständlich das die Leute ihr Geld abziehen!



Wirtschaftskrise: US-Senat lässt Rettungspakete vom IWF platzen

Angesichts der angespannten Haushaltslage hat nun der US-Senat den US-Delegierten beim IWF zu einem Veto gegen finanzielle Rettungspakete für verschuldete Staaten verpflichtet. Somit bleibt die Bitte an den IWF, eine Unterstützung von etwa 310 Milliarden zu erhalten, unerfüllt.

Nach zahlreichen Rettungspaketen innerhalb der USA erzeugt der Gedanke, sich nun auch noch Rettungspakete für andere Staaten aufzubürden, großen Unmut, zumal das Ausfallrisiko dieser Kredite wahrscheinlich ist (ShortNews berichtete).

Mit dem Vetorecht der USA beim IWF steht und fällt eine Beteiligung des IWF an den europäischen Plänen zum Auffang der Zahlungsunfähigkeit von bedrohten Staaten. Mit dem Versagen der IWF-Unterstützung ist nun mit einem Flächenbrand in der EU-Zone zu rechnen.

Quelle: de.reuters.com

www.shortnews.de/id/832511/...t-Rettungspakete-vom-IWF-platzen

Deine Aussagen stimmen bis zu einem Punkt:

"Und natürlich die Privaten Käufer auch Geld haben was im Moment bischen  schwierig ist wie man sieht. Denn CFC hatte, hat und wird nach den  Aussagen von Herrn Obernitz erstmal AUSSCHLIESSLICH nur im Eigenheim  bereich Ihre Ziele gesteckt. Und die Käufer dieser Geräte sind eben  Eigenheimbesitzer.  "

Die Geräte werden -wie du davor schon geschrieben hast-
nicht an den Eigenheimbesitzer verkauft,
sondern von dem Energieunternehmen,
daher sind es deren Anschaffungskosten
und nicht die des Eigenheimbesitzers.

Das ist auf meine Aussage davor bezogen! Wenn sie jetzt Geld hätten würden sie JETZT die Käufe antreiben. Aber da diese Leute kein Geld haben müssen sie warten bis die Günstig vom Anbieter kommen! ;o)

Hi Tokatci,

schön mal wieder was von Dir zu lesen.

Zum Marktumfeld:

Wie ich neulich in einem Radiobeitrag gehört habe (habe leider keine exaktere Qellenangabe) werden in den nächsten Wochen weltweit (nicht bei CFC) ein paar Kredite fällig, was zur Folge hat, das viele Anleger erstmal alles zu Geld machen was möglich ist. Dies soll den allgemeinen Abwärtstrend an den Börsen ausgelöst haben, zumal die Wette auf die Insolvenz von Griechenland ja erstmal verloren scheint.

Das Marktumfeld zum verkaufen von in Deutschland gefertigten Produkten, in unserem Fall eben die Brennstoffzellen von CFC, sind meiner Meinung nach durch den gefallenen Euro und den gleichzeitig gefallene Ölpreis (Keramik brennen ist sehr energieintensiv!) so gut wie schon lange nicht mehr. Ich denke, das CFC evt etwas schneller als bisher angenommen in die Gewinnzone fahren wird. 

Bin also sehr optimistisch eingestellt.

Bis bald mal

Ja da geb ich dir Recht ausser das CFC im Moment Probleme haben wird wegen dem Euro. Denn du musst dir das auch mal anders rum denken. Das Ausland bezahlt CFC in Deutschland wohl mit Euro. Vorallem Europa wird CFC wohl mit dem Euro bedienen. USA und Australien und alle anderen Länder müssten auch in Euro bezahlen. Sprich es ist fürs Ausland nun TEURER geworden wie Ware zu kaufen.

Vor dem 3.Quartal geht hier denke ich bei CFC erstmal nichts mehr. Die schliessen jetzt die letzten Bauphasen ab (Das drumherum mit den Partnern wie z.B Bruns Heiztechnik) und wenn alles abgeschlossen ist dann gehts los.

Und bis ich keine gewissheit über den nächsten Q.Bericht habe schau ich mir mal an wie tief das noch geht. Aber eines (da bin ich mir zu 100% sicher) steht schon mal fest. Das Produkt ist Top und es wird ein Erfolg. Und auch hier werden nur die Geduldigen Geld machen.

Gruß

Ich sehe gerade es kommt falsch rüber mein TEXT.

Nochmal: ALs Exportland ist der jetztige EUro Kurs narürlich besser. USA und alle ausser Europa können jetzt das GERÄT billiger HABEN aaaaaaaber CFC muss für den IMPORT der Bestandteile und der Fertigung nun MEEEHR bezahlen. SO sorry wenn das oben falsch rüberkam.

Also einerseits hat CFC Mehr kosten aber das Ausland bekommt es günstiger. Aber ob das Ausland es günstiger bekommt hilft auch nicht viel mehr ausser die Produktionsmasse bei CFC steigt bei gleichem gewinn an.

RNS Number : 3999M Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited 24 May 2010

24 May 2010

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited

Director Shareholding

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM / ASX: CFU) announces that on 21 May 2010, Mr John Dempsey, a non-executive director of Ceramic Fuel Cells, via his superannuation fund (JHM Superfund), purchased 20,000 ordinary shares in Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited ("Ordinary Shares") at an average price of AUD 0.155, representing 0.00% of the issued share capital.

Following this announcement Mr John Dempsey is interested, directly or indirectly, in a total of 20,000 Ordinary Shares representing 0.00% of the issued share capital.

 

... alle Achtung, der Kollege geht aber ran. Eigentlich immer ein positives Zeichen, wenn Manager/Direktoren eigene Aktien kaufen. In diesem Fall jedoch, will bei mir keine rechte Freude aufkommen.

damit dürften die 10 eurocent nicht mehr halten. nächstes Kursziel 5 cent? 

Wieso dickes minus?

Gestern plus 6 Prozent und heute minus 3 Prozent???!!!!

 

wotnews.com.au/announcement/...fficiency_Issues_Paper/1066851/

 

 http://www.cfcl.com.au/Assets/Files/...cUrban_Operating_26May2010.pdf

http://www.cfcl.com.au/Assets/Files/...VicUrban_BlueGen_26May2010.pdf

vorallem das Diagramm auf S.6 , demnach braucht bluegen ~1Tag zum Anfahren. Ausserdem macht mich die Abnahme des Wirkungsgrades stutzig, 4% in 3 Wochen. Sieht so aus als ob man noch größere Probleme mit der Degradation der Stacks hat.

Schau nochmal drauf. Am ENDE der Zeit  (600STD) hat das Gerät die 58% mit der geworben wird. ;o)

Die haben nicht gesagt 61%. Dann hättest du Recht.

Gruß

jetzt ist halt nur die Frage: was passiert nach den 600std? ein weiterer Abfall um 4% für 600std? das wäre Fatal....

Interview with Andrew Neilson  -  Artikel vom 27.05.2010

http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/content/...iew-with-andrew-neilson/42093  Ceramic Fuel Cells - interview with Andrew Neilson Ceramic Fuel Cell's Gennex Module Ceramic Fuel Cells (LON:CFU) is a leading developer of solid oxide fuel cell technologies dual listed on the London AIM Market and Australian ASX Market. The company is developing micro heat and power (mCHP) and distributed generation units to generate clean heat and electricity for homes from natural gas. Yesterday morning the company made two announcements that show how both the business and the climate surrounding the adoption of these technologies is progressing. We spoke to Andrew Neilson (Group General Manager - Commercial), on the phone to Melbourne about these announcements and on the general outlook for Ceramic Fuel Cells.Over the last six months the company has started taking orders for it’s BlueGen fuel cell generator recording 17 orders as of the last quarterly cashflow report on April 29th and a further 30 a day later. The first of these BlueGen units was delivered to VicUrban, the Victorian government’s residential housing developer. Yesterday the company announced that the unit is performing as expected. It’s generating about twice the amount of power used by the average home in Melbourne on an annualised basis.Q. Before we go onto more general questions, can you comment on today’s update about the VicUrban installation? ^[1] “VicUrban is responsible for managing new residential developments in Victoria and as a government body they also have a mandate to encourage energy efficiency, sustainability and emerging technologies. They are putting three BlueGen units into their sites, the first was commissioned in this housing development at the end of April... and it’s running and performing well at an electrical efficiency of 58%.“We are starting to deliver and install orders taken over last 6 months, which will continue progressively over next month or two. We have the beginnings of a mini production line out here and are starting to ship some units, some have been installed in Germany. Generally speaking we won’t give updates to the market when each unit has been installed, but as this was the first we wanted to give people an update but for future units we will just include an update in our quarterly update.”Q. Can you comment similarly on the second announcement?  ^[2] “It’s a bit more general and of more interest to our Australian shareholders. The Federal Government had tried to introduce a carbon trading scheme that’s now been put on the back burner, so they are now preferentially making energy efficiency their priority. The Prime Minister has now set up a task force on energy efficiency and quite a few of the submissions to the task force made the point that distributed generation, small scale generation and in particular fuel cells are an important way of reducing emissions and increasing efficiency. This is a chance to reassure our local shareholders that we’re not the only ones who think this is a good idea!”Q. Can you describe the differences between the BlueGen and the integrated Combined Heat and Power units (mCHP)?“You are right that we are developing integrated products as well, in the UK, France and Germany. The integrated product includes the same core fuel cell module which we call Gennex which runs on natural gas as fuel but the integrated product also has a condensing boiler included. So the integrated product will provide power, hot water as well as additional heat for space heating . It is designed for markets that need a sophisticated heating solution, Western Europe, East Coast of the US, and BlueGen is designed for markets that don’t need sophisticated heating - Southern Europe, West Coast of the US. But BlueGen is also perfect for homes within other markets that don’t need sophisticated heating.”“So just to explain that, if you are living in Germany or the UK and you’ve got a perfectly good home boiler system, but you are interested in low emission power then BlueGen could be an add on product. It’s not a replacement for a complete home heating system, it could be an add on product for homes that have a perfectly good heating system but just want to have access to low emission power.”“Typically CHP technologies produce a lot of heat, but a small amount of power - e.g. a internal combustion engine or a Stirling engine. They are primarily heating systems, whereas we are the opposite - power generators with a little bit of heat.”Q. So you can export excess power to the grid?“The average home in Melbourne uses about 6000kWH of electricity per year, in the UK about 4500kWH, so typically in markets where you’ve got a feed-in-tariff like the UK the ability to generate more power than the home consumes over the course of a year creates a revenue opportunity. You effectively become a mini Power Station. So to put that into context, the range of average annual consumptions varies from Japan which is quite low at 4000kWH up to 12-15,000kWH for the West Coast of the US, primarily because of air conditioning use. When you are looking at CHP technologies it’s important to understand how much power it will produce over the course of the year, which will give you an idea of whether the product will provide half, all or 200% of the home’s requirement.”Q. Could you elaborate on feed-in-tariffs, capital subsidies and your European focus?“The Europeans were ahead of the curve on this. So back in 2004 we listed on ASX and shortly after hired our first UK staff. From 2004 to mid-2009 we were really focused on the Western European market. The reasons for that are the European’s had the emissions trading scheme. It’s not directly relevant to us as we aren’t really a carbon play, but it has helped create an environment where utilities and others have to think about and put a value on energy efficiency.”“And in certain markets there are more specific incentives - in Germany there’s the feed-in-tariff - which has now been introduced in the UK. Certainly feed-in-tariffs are important for UK market. It also helps to send a strong signal to many other markets that if they want to reduce emissions, then sure encourage renewables, but recognise that renewables aren’t the only answer - there are other technologies out there.”“Generally speaking what we’ve found is that most feed-in-tariffs are restricted to renewables typically small scale solar, certainly that’s the case here in Australia, but as policy makers start to look further into the opportunities they realise it makes sense to broaden the FITs to other technologies that reduce emissions which is why the UK includes an FIT for small scale combined heat and power units. We think feed-in-tariffs are a sensible policy because they reward the outcome you are looking for which is efficient electricity. Capital subsidies are a reasonably blunt instrument - which tend not to reward the right outcome. In Australia the solar PV capital subsidies have encouraged a race to the bottom - manufacturers tend to source the lowest cost product which typically has lower efficiency and poorer output which doesn’t reward the outcome you want.”Editor - For more information on UK Feed in Tariffs - click hereQ. Ceramic Fuel Cells is often compared with Ceres Power Hldgs (LON:CWR) as you are both AIM Listed Solid Oxide fuel cell companies aimed at a similar market space. Who are your other main competitors in Europe?“Other companies targeting the same market space in Europe, include Topsoe in Denmark (a similar fuel cell technology, tending to larger units ), Hexis in Switzerland (a small company developing a similar product ) and Staxera in Germany. Hexis and Topsoe have fully developed systems and Hexis has had early field trials similarly to CFU - but none of them have yet moved into volume manufacturing. We have invested EUR 9.5m into the development of a manufacturing facility in Germany which is designed to produce a capacity of 10,000 fuel cell stacks per year”“Another key difference is that none of our competitors have multiple commercial customers or arrangements across multiple markets - [whereas] we think it’s important to spread our commercial risk and not just rely on one customer or market.”“The other main differentiator for us is our very high electrical efficiency. We think to offer value to the end customer the product has to be better than the incumbent technology. The incumbent technology for producing heat in the home is the condensing boiler which is extremely efficient (more than 95%) whereas the incumbent technology for creating power is the [national] grid and when you take out transmission and distribution losses you are looking at about a 35% efficiency. That’s why we have focused on electrical efficiency because we can do it better than the grid and electricity is more valuable than heat. The peak electrical efficiency we have achieved a 60% efficiency [for our Gennex fuel cell stack] which is far ahead of any other technology and any other fuel cell in small scale generation.”Q. Where and where are the biggest market opportunities for Ceramic Fuel Cells?“There is no shortage of interest or demand. If you think simplistically about the market potential, it’s every house that has a connection to the Natural gas Pipeline. We aren’t worried about a lack of demand we are more worried about scaling up in a managed or a sensible way creating the best conditions for those early customers to come back for more [larger] orders.”“In terms of market take up, we think Germany will be the biggest market [in the short term] and the UK [close behind]. The Netherlands has an extremely high domestic gas penetration. France has a lower emissions profile due to the high nuclear penetration but in spite of this we are working with GDF Suez which has 11 million customers http://www.cfcl.com.au/Partners/. Other good potential markets are in Italy and Spain. Outside Europe, we are selling into Australia. It’s quite a small market, but it’s still important to us we are based here and we have a lot of Australian shareholders. It can take quite some time to penetrate the Japan market, but if you’ve got patience it can be quite big. Further afield the West Coast of the US. California is introducing large incentives for gas generation.“Medium to Long term, you’d have to look at China, India and Brazil - but we’d need to get the product quite a bit cheaper for those markets to take it on.“Q. You’ve been picking up sales momentum for the BlueGen product. One of our readers has posed the question of when you will generate fully commercial sales. Could you comment on that?“Interest is picking up, we are deliberately starting off with non residential consumers, mainly utilities in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands and some government organisations particularly in Australia. Typically utilities and governments can afford to pay more than the average home owner. It’s important for us to recover the costs of the early units which are reasonably high in low volumes. We are selling to non residential customers first, we get lots of calls and emails asking to buy units.“Regarding residential sales, If we wanted to we could sell thousands in a short space of time, the constraint or the challenge for us is to be able to scale up our manufacturing. To sensibly go from 5 units to a thousand takes time. We also need to make sure we have the installation and support network in place, the plumbers and electricians to install the products and provide the after sale service. That’s not difficult, it’s just a practical matter of getting the right people trained on the ground.”“We need people to have a positive experience from our products. We see the utilities as being the most likely customers for our products in volume. We won’t sell directly to homeowners. In the UK we will sell through resellers and distributors, the types of organisations that already sell and install home energy systems, Solar PV, heat pumps etc. In other markets, e.g. Germany, it will more likely be the utilities themselves.”“We think the destination is for the utilities to roll these products out in volume, but in the short term we’ll be happy to sell through other distribution channels in order to get the products out there, volumes up, costs down and seed the market. Appliance companies could be another distribution channel - they have the network of skilled tradespeople.”Q. What is the group’s current financial situation and when will you reach breakeven?“Cash at the end of the last quarter was £10.1m and the underlying cash outflow was higher than in previous quarters... as we placed large component orders . The quarterly cashflow figures are also a little bit thrown around by foreign exchange movements, so I would encourage you to strip those out when you are looking at the underlying cashflow .... We are comfortable with the cash position , with early sales revenue coming through . We will need to start to investing in working capital, so as we start to build up stock and inventory to supply demand we will obviously need to buy all the components in order to turn them into products and generate the revenue. ^[3] “The equipment we have in the factory has the capacity to make 10,000 units per year. We’ve got plenty of capacity there. We have taken the decision to invest shareholders money in building the plant, investing roundabout EUR 9.5m. On our projections we reach breakeven well below 10,000 units per year. Less than half of that should let us reach cashflow positive.“When we reach that point comes down to the balance between going after volume or maintaining a high average selling price. We get a lot of shareholders coming to us saying why don’t you sell 5000 units for £8000. We are confident we could do that, but we don’t think its in shareholders best interests to do that when we’ve got customers willing to pay a lot more than that. It also significiantly increases the risk in deploying the product. If we need to replace a widget on the BlueGen units we’d rather replace it on 200 units than 2000. So it is a bit of a balance between going after volume and maintaining high initial prices in order to make sure we’re not loss leading.“Q. What keeps you up at night?”The biggest challenge over the next 6-12 months will be rolling out product, installing it and providing a good service so that those early customers have a positive experience and ideally place larger follow on orders. But it’s also managing the challenge of taking the technology from an R&D and development phase, where engineers and scientists can continually tweak and improve the product, to a manufacturing and product sales environment. The product needs to be manufactured for a sensible cost and needs to be reliable. We’ve cracked the efficiency, but the main focus is on making it last for a long time. It’s the same challenge for all fuel cell companies.“Q. How easy do you find it is to generate press and broker coverage?”It is a bit of a challenge. On the broker side, we typically we have enthusiastic supporters within houses, but [other than our house broker] not formal research coverage Broker houses only write about stocks where they get enough commission on the trades to justify the cost of the analyst. It can be a challenge for Australian company to generate traction in the UK. We are familiar with lots of brokers and come across twice per year and Hogarth PR maintain the momentum.“Thanks to Andrew for providing us with such an in depth update.  Andrew Neilsen - Group General Manager - CommercialMr Neilson has worked as a solicitor with one of Australia's largest law firms, and as an in-house legal counsel and commercial manager for two NYSE-listed global IT firms.  He has experience with commercialising technology, identifying and managing commercial risk and in structuring and negotiating a range of contracts with global partners, suppliers and customers. Mr Neilson is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Commerce. 

Vielleicht ist dies besser zu lesen: 

 

Ceramic Fuel Cells (LON:CFU) is a leading developer of solid oxide fuel cell technologies dual listed on the London AIM Market and Australian ASX Market. The company is developing micro heat and power (mCHP) and distributed generation units to generate clean heat and electricity for homes from natural gas. Yesterday morning the company made two announcements that show how both the business and the climate surrounding the adoption of these technologies is progressing. We spoke to Andrew Neilson (Group General Manager - Commercial), on the phone to Melbourne about these announcements and on the general outlook for Ceramic Fuel Cells. Over the last six months the company has started taking orders for it’s BlueGen fuel cell generator recording 17 orders as of the last quarterly cashflow report on April 29th and a further 30 a day later. The first of these BlueGen units was delivered to VicUrban, the Victorian government’s residential housing developer. Yesterday the company announced that the unit is performing as expected. It’s generating about twice the amount of power used by the average home in Melbourne on an annualised basis. Q. Before we go onto more general questions, can you comment on today’s update about the VicUrban installation? ^[1] “VicUrban is responsible for managing new residential developments in Victoria and as a government body they also have a mandate to encourage energy efficiency, sustainability and emerging technologies. They are putting three BlueGen units into their sites, the first was commissioned in this housing development at the end of April... and it’s running and performing well at an electrical efficiency of 58%.“We are starting to deliver and install orders taken over last 6 months, which will continue progressively over next month or two. We have the beginnings of a mini production line out here and are starting to ship some units, some have been installed in Germany. Generally speaking we won’t give updates to the market when each unit has been installed, but as this was the first we wanted to give people an update but for future units we will just include an update in our quarterly update.” Q. Can you comment similarly on the second announcement?  ^[2] “It’s a bit more general and of more interest to our Australian shareholders. The Federal Government had tried to introduce a carbon trading scheme that’s now been put on the back burner, so they are now preferentially making energy efficiency their priority. The Prime Minister has now set up a task force on energy efficiency and quite a few of the submissions to the task force made the point that distributed generation, small scale generation and in particular fuel cells are an important way of reducing emissions and increasing efficiency. This is a chance to reassure our local shareholders that we’re not the only ones who think this is a good idea!” Q. Can you describe the differences between the BlueGen and the integrated Combined Heat and Power units (mCHP)?“You are right that we are developing integrated products as well, in the UK, France and Germany. The integrated product includes the same core fuel cell module which we call Gennex which runs on natural gas as fuel but the integrated product also has a condensing boiler included. So the integrated product will provide power, hot water as well as additional heat for space heating . It is designed for markets that need a sophisticated heating solution, Western Europe, East Coast of the US, and BlueGen is designed for markets that don’t need sophisticated heating - Southern Europe, West Coast of the US. But BlueGen is also perfect for homes within other markets that don’t need sophisticated heating.”“So just to explain that, if you are living in Germany or the UK and you’ve got a perfectly good home boiler system, but you are interested in low emission power then BlueGen could be an add on product. It’s not a replacement for a complete home heating system, it could be an add on product for homes that have a perfectly good heating system but just want to have access to low emission power.”“Typically CHP technologies produce a lot of heat, but a small amount of power - e.g. a internal combustion engine or a Stirling engine. They are primarily heating systems, whereas we are the opposite - power generators with a little bit of heat.” Q. So you can export excess power to the grid?“The average home in Melbourne uses about 6000kWH of electricity per year, in the UK about 4500kWH, so typically in markets where you’ve got a feed-in-tariff like the UK the ability to generate more power than the home consumes over the course of a year creates a revenue opportunity. You effectively become a mini Power Station. So to put that into context, the range of average annual consumptions varies from Japan which is quite low at 4000kWH up to 12-15,000kWH for the West Coast of the US, primarily because of air conditioning use. When you are looking at CHP technologies it’s important to understand how much power it will produce over the course of the year, which will give you an idea of whether the product will provide half, all or 200% of the home’s requirement.” Q. Could you elaborate on feed-in-tariffs, capital subsidies and your European focus?“The Europeans were ahead of the curve on this. So back in 2004 we listed on ASX and shortly after hired our first UK staff. From 2004 to mid-2009 we were really focused on the Western European market. The reasons for that are the European’s had the emissions trading scheme. It’s not directly relevant to us as we aren’t really a carbon play, but it has helped create an environment where utilities and others have to think about and put a value on energy efficiency.”“And in certain markets there are more specific incentives - in Germany there’s the feed-in-tariff - which has now been introduced in the UK. Certainly feed-in-tariffs are important for UK market. It also helps to send a strong signal to many other markets that if they want to reduce emissions, then sure encourage renewables, but recognise that renewables aren’t the only answer - there are other technologies out there.”“Generally speaking what we’ve found is that most feed-in-tariffs are restricted to renewables typically small scale solar, certainly that’s the case here in Australia, but as policy makers start to look further into the opportunities they realise it makes sense to broaden the FITs to other technologies that reduce emissions which is why the UK includes an FIT for small scale combined heat and power units. We think feed-in-tariffs are a sensible policy because they reward the outcome you are looking for which is efficient electricity. Capital subsidies are a reasonably blunt instrument - which tend not to reward the right outcome. In Australia the solar PV capital subsidies have encouraged a race to the bottom - manufacturers tend to source the lowest cost product which typically has lower efficiency and poorer output which doesn’t reward the outcome you want.”Editor - For more information on UK Feed in Tariffs - click here Q. Ceramic Fuel Cells is often compared with Ceres Power Hldgs (LON:CWR) as you are both AIM Listed Solid Oxide fuel cell companies aimed at a similar market space. Who are your other main competitors in Europe?“Other companies targeting the same market space in Europe, include Topsoe in Denmark (a similar fuel cell technology, tending to larger units ), Hexis in Switzerland (a small company developing a similar product ) and Staxera in Germany. Hexis and Topsoe have fully developed systems and Hexis has had early field trials similarly to CFU - but none of them have yet moved into volume manufacturing. We have invested EUR 9.5m into the development of a manufacturing facility in Germany which is designed to produce a capacity of 10,000 fuel cell stacks per year”“Another key difference is that none of our competitors have multiple commercial customers or arrangements across multiple markets - [whereas] we think it’s important to spread our commercial risk and not just rely on one customer or market.”“The other main differentiator for us is our very high electrical efficiency. We think to offer value to the end customer the product has to be better than the incumbent technology. The incumbent technology for producing heat in the home is the condensing boiler which is extremely efficient (more than 95%) whereas the incumbent technology for creating power is the [national] grid and when you take out transmission and distribution losses you are looking at about a 35% efficiency. That’s why we have focused on electrical efficiency because we can do it better than the grid and electricity is more valuable than heat. The peak electrical efficiency we have achieved a 60% efficiency [for our Gennex fuel cell stack] which is far ahead of any other technology and any other fuel cell in small scale generation.” Q. Where and where are the biggest market opportunities for Ceramic Fuel Cells?“There is no shortage of interest or demand. If you think simplistically about the market potential, it’s every house that has a connection to the Natural gas Pipeline. We aren’t worried about a lack of demand we are more worried about scaling up in a managed or a sensible way creating the best conditions for those early customers to come back for more [larger] orders.”“In terms of market take up, we think Germany will be the biggest market [in the short term] and the UK [close behind]. The Netherlands has an extremely high domestic gas penetration. France has a lower emissions profile due to the high nuclear penetration but in spite of this we are working with GDF Suez which has 11 million customers http://www.cfcl.com.au/Partners/. Other good potential markets are in Italy and Spain. Outside Europe, we are selling into Australia. It’s quite a small market, but it’s still important to us we are based here and we have a lot of Australian shareholders. It can take quite some time to penetrate the Japan market, but if you’ve got patience it can be quite big. Further afield the West Coast of the US. California is introducing large incentives for gas generation.“Medium to Long term, you’d have to look at China, India and Brazil - but we’d need to get the product quite a bit cheaper for those markets to take it on.“ Q. You’ve been picking up sales momentum for the BlueGen product. One of our readers has posed the question of when you will generate fully commercial sales. Could you comment on that?“Interest is picking up, we are deliberately starting off with non residential consumers, mainly utilities in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands and some government organisations particularly in Australia. Typically utilities and governments can afford to pay more than the average home owner. It’s important for us to recover the costs of the early units which are reasonably high in low volumes. We are selling to non residential customers first, we get lots of calls and emails asking to buy units.“Regarding residential sales, If we wanted to we could sell thousands in a short space of time, the constraint or the challenge for us is to be able to scale up our manufacturing. To sensibly go from 5 units to a thousand takes time. We also need to make sure we have the installation and support network in place, the plumbers and electricians to install the products and provide the after sale service. That’s not difficult, it’s just a practical matter of getting the right people trained on the ground.”“We need people to have a positive experience from our products. We see the utilities as being the most likely customers for our products in volume. We won’t sell directly to homeowners. In the UK we will sell through resellers and distributors, the types of organisations that already sell and install home energy systems, Solar PV, heat pumps etc. In other markets, e.g. Germany, it will more likely be the utilities themselves.”“We think the destination is for the utilities to roll these products out in volume, but in the short term we’ll be happy to sell through other distribution channels in order to get the products out there, volumes up, costs down and seed the market. Appliance companies could be another distribution channel - they have the network of skilled tradespeople.” Q. What is the group’s current financial situation and when will you reach breakeven?“Cash at the end of the last quarter was £10.1m and the underlying cash outflow was higher than in previous quarters... as we placed large component orders . The quarterly cashflow figures are also a little bit thrown around by foreign exchange movements, so I would encourage you to strip those out when you are looking at the underlying cashflow .... We are comfortable with the cash position , with early sales revenue coming through . We will need to start to investing in working capital, so as we start to build up stock and inventory to supply demand we will obviously need to buy all the components in order to turn them into products and generate the revenue. ^[3] “The equipment we have in the factory has the capacity to make 10,000 units per year. We’ve got plenty of capacity there. We have taken the decision to invest shareholders money in building the plant, investing roundabout EUR 9.5m. On our projections we reach breakeven well below 10,000 units per year. Less than half of that should let us reach cashflow positive.“When we reach that point comes down to the balance between going after volume or maintaining a high average selling price. We get a lot of shareholders coming to us saying why don’t you sell 5000 units for £8000. We are confident we could do that, but we don’t think its in shareholders best interests to do that when we’ve got customers willing to pay a lot more than that. It also significiantly increases the risk in deploying the product. If we need to replace a widget on the BlueGen units we’d rather replace it on 200 units than 2000. So it is a bit of a balance between going after volume and maintaining high initial prices in order to make sure we’re not loss leading.“ Q. What keeps you up at night?”The biggest challenge over the next 6-12 months will be rolling out product, installing it and providing a good service so that those early customers have a positive experience and ideally place larger follow on orders. But it’s also managing the challenge of taking the technology from an R&D and development phase, where engineers and scientists can continually tweak and improve the product, to a manufacturing and product sales environment. The product needs to be manufactured for a sensible cost and needs to be reliable. We’ve cracked the efficiency, but the main focus is on making it last for a long time. It’s the same challenge for all fuel cell companies.“ Q. How easy do you find it is to generate press and broker coverage?”It is a bit of a challenge. On the broker side, we typically we have enthusiastic supporters within houses, but [other than our house broker] not formal research coverage Broker houses only write about stocks where they get enough commission on the trades to justify the cost of the analyst. It can be a challenge for Australian company to generate traction in the UK. We are familiar with lots of brokers and come across twice per year and Hogarth PR maintain the momentum.“Thanks to Andrew for providing us with such an in depth update. Mr Neilson has worked as a solicitor with one of Australia's largest law firms, and as an in-house legal counsel and commercial manager for two NYSE-listed global IT firms.  He has experience with commercialising technology, identifying and managing commercial risk and in structuring and negotiating a range of contracts with global partners, suppliers and customers. Mr Neilson is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Commerce.