Winter Newsletter

New Non-Executive Director

ReGenTech appoints Tom Houghton to the Board as a Non-Executive Director. Tom has many years experience in the city of London's VC community in the IT industry. He has been appointed to provide strategic guidance and financial structure to the business. Tom is also taking some time out from the VC industry to complete a PHD at Strathclyde University studying the development and evolution of the hydrogen economy. Managing Director Mike Banks "it is important to build a strong board with technical, industrial and managerial know-how. Tom will be invaluable addition to the board."

SNP Party Conference

October 2007 saw Scotland's ruling party, the SNP, adopt a motion committing the country to begin the journey to decrease Scotland's dependence on fossil hydrocarbons in favour of renewable energy systems and to develop a viable "Hydrogen from Renewables" component of the energy economy. The Scottish Governments commitment is clear and is in line with the Hydrogen stance developed by the Welsh Assembly in direct defiance of Westminster dithering on the opportunity. This may see the emergence of a vibrant Celtic Hydrogen Alliance. The consists:

      Conference commits the country

1:   To develop and implement a strategy for the rapid and accelerating development and deployment of all renewable energy resources within the country displacing the use of fossil hydrocarbon’s in a phased manner wherever technically practical

2:   Develop a viable hydrogen component within the energy economy based on local production from renewables to displace locally consumed hydrocarbons and using fossil hydrocarbons as an additional source of hydrogen where appropriate

3:   To bring Scotland’s oil and gas industry skills to bear in this energy transition whilst protecting and encouraging this existing oil and gas industry resource

4:   To develop the skills base necessary for the exploitation of new renewables technologies, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies across the Scottish Economy

This motion was Resolution was accepted unanimously and as a result we should hope to see the Scottish Government including Hydrocarbon displacement and the Hydrogen Economy in general discussion.

Dave McGrath commented afterwards that "all governments focus heavily on health, education and security... Every policy requires a stable, secure and reliable energy supply. Every policy will fail unless we can guarantee security of supply with carbon emissions as low as technology allows"

Please download the following text of the speach:

      Speach Text

Newsnight Scotland

ReGenTech's founder and Business Development Director was on News night with Labour Energy minister, MP Malcolm Wicks.

The topic of discussion was the announcement that Honda will start production runs for fuel cell vehicles. Dave was featured on Newsnight in 2004 with the Reva electric car which his company siGEN had converted to run on a hydrogen fuel cell.

Commentators then were referring to "10-15 years" to see fuel cell cars in production, Dave always doubted this!

Dave pointed out the $billions that other countries (larger and smaller than the UK) invest in hardware on the ground, also the fuel cell industry is moving rapidly to a deployment phase. The UK government has yet to realise this paradigm shift.

R&D will always be required and great for the Universities. However when the students graduate, find no UK industry many leave for the US, Rest of Europe or Asia... Mr Wicks reiterated the £50m investment the government has made in R&D.

To see the video, please follow this link to the YouTube video:

      Malcolm Wicks Newsnight

      Reva 2007 Newsnight

BHA Eco-Evolution 5 House

The detailed systems design of the BHA Eco-Evolution 5 house is nearing completion by ReGenTech's Engineering Director, Stuart Graham. We are currently in the final stages of the electrical and gas systems. The wet/heating systems have been completed with the help of Edinburgh Based heating engineers, Allan Cummings Associates who have been involved with past projects.

Idatech has been selected as the supplier for the fuel cell system, the 5kW Electragen system will be modified slightly to suit our needs for heat recovery. We expect to take delivery in the next month. Idatech will carry out training and installation with ReGenTech's engineering team when the system is required on site.

The electrolyser has also been ordered from Labgas TMI/Icelandic Hydrogen and we also hope to take delivery of a customised system featuring external control and heat recovery. The electrolyser will consume any excess electricity produced from the renewable inputs of wind and PV and produce up to 15l/min hydrogen which will be stored in specially designed underground storage tanks.

The Idatech fuel cell and Labgas electrolyser were selected because of their track record, maturity, build quality and also the ability of the manufacturer to supply to our specification.

ReGenTech Power Tower

Work on the Power Tower project continues, system modeling and control regime have been designed and we are now at the hands on hardware stage. Custom DCDC electronics are also being built to integrate micro wind, PV and fuel cells to guarantee remote loads of up to 50w. This power is able to suffice most remote monitoring, telemetry and security technologies which currently rely on expensive grid connections or environmentally damaging gensets.

ReGenTech have recently taken on a recent graduate of Robert Gordons University, Aberdeen. Derek Featherstone graduated in Electronic and Electrical systems which also included some renewable modules.

His key abilities at microcontroller programming and power electronics with his interests in alternative energy make him an excellent choice for the Power Tower programme, funded in part by the Scottish Government fuel cell support scheme.

Derek was critical of the renewable elements to his degree course due to the lack of hydrogen and fuel cell content. This was noticed by all students who were keen to learn about this new and exciting technology.

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