Fuel cells meet AGVs

Two customers have asked FMC Technologies for automatic guided vehicle systems powered by fuel cells.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 4/8/2008

Fuel cells have been making news in the lift truck industry for several years, and now they’re being implemented as a power source for automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) as well.

FMC Technologies is preparing to install two different fleets of AGVs powered by two different types of fuel cells: one with hydrogen-based fuel cells from Plug Power and the other with methanol-based fuel cell battery chargers from Oorja Protonics.

While the two systems are very different, says Don DelMar, director of engineering for FMC, both promise to improve productivity by either eliminating the need to swap out batteries for daily recharging or eliminating the time vehicles spend sitting idle for opportunity charging.

Both fuel cell systems are designed to be quick and easy to refuel, and DelMar says both were easy to install. “They’re pretty much plug-and-play,” he says.

The main difference between them, says DelMar, is that the hydrogen fuel cell is a full energy system that completely replaces the AGV’s traditional lead-acid battery. The methanol fuel cell is a charging system that works to continually charge a lead-acid battery.

Their other differences, he says, “come down to cost and amount of maintenance.”

“With the OorjaPac, you still have batteries that need to be maintained,” he says. “And batteries don’t last forever, so they need to be replaced eventually.”

On the other hand, he says, “The hydrogen fuel cells are still very expensive. I’m not sure how people justify them.”

The two fuel cell technologies are so new, says DelMar, that he’s not sure yet how reliable the systems will be. He says he’ll be closely watching the performance of the two fuel cell-powered AGV systems once they’re up and running. “We’ll learn about reliability soon,” he says.