Volvo and Statoil agree joint fuel cell venture

Volvo and Norwegian oil and gas producer Statoil has entered into a joint venture to develop fuel cell technology to solve the environmental problems posed by running truck engines at idle.

Volvo has teamed up with Statoil

The joint venture called Powercell will produce fuel cells, which produce power for engine ancillaries such as air conditioning and lighting, so the truck engine would not have to run idle.

Volvo says a fuel cell providing idle power would reduce a truck's average carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 20-30 tons per year, a saving of around 15 million tons of emissions per year if applied to all the trucks in North America.

"Through use of fuel cell technology in the power unit, you can reduce emissions sharply, while at the same time the unit can be made substantially smaller," said Volvo spokesperson Goran Wirmark.
"Long term power units driven by fuel cells will also be used in boats, aircraft and other mobile units in which there is a need for a compact, environmentally sound and efficient power supply," he said.