There has been a lot of hype recently around the distributed energy market. This view has been driving new investor interest in companies that manufacture fuel cells, fuel reformers, hydrogen storage, wind power, photovoltaic cells, clean-burning gas plants and clean fuel producers. The underlying driver behind this market opportunity, the reasoning goes, is the ability of energy consumers to look at their electric bills and distinguish between what the commodity of electricity costs them and what it costs to get that commodity to them through the distribution network. In many cases, the cost of distribution is 75 percent of the bill or more. Distributed generation means that there are technologies that have to be grown in order to generate that electricity on site and do it efficiently.
Fuel cells are one way, solar cells are another, microturbines are another.
Those are three technologies where there's been significant venture and more recently public investment. SatCon provides power and energy management products targeted at the distributed power market. Epyx recently concluded a 50-50 merger with De Nora Fuel Cells, a subsidiary of De Nora of Milan, Italy. At the time of the formation of Nuvera, in a 50-50 merger between Arthur D. Little and De Nora, Arthur D. Little sold a minority share in the new entity to Amerada Hess Corporation. Hess is a leading East Coast provider of fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity to industrial and commercial customers.