Fuel cell market size soon $8.5 billion, says report

A new report forecasts nearly sixfold expansion in commercial demand for fuel cells by 2011, to $2.5 billion, reaching $8.5 billion in 2016.

Despite relatively low levels of fuel cell sales today, a number of viable markets are expected to develop over the next ten years as technological advances and economies of scale help drive costs down to competitive levels.

So says World Fuel Cells, a new study from The Freedonia Group, a Cleveland-based industry market research firm.

The report cites high energy prices and environmental concerns as contributing to fuel cell commercialization activity and market gains.

However, it will take time for fuel cells to penetrate markets now served by other power sources, and commercial demand will continue to account for less than half of all fuel cell spending in 2016, it says.

With a number of products now on the market, electric power generation applications accounted for well over half of all commercial fuel cell sales in 2006, the report found.

The portable electronics market is forecast to register the strongest growth through 2011 and beyond, according to the report's authors, rising from what are presently extremely low levels of demand, as commercialization activity picks up.

Fuel cells for consumer electronics are have been widely seen by industry observers as "only a few years away" for many years, now.

In 2006, the report found five countries—the U.S., Japan, Germany, Canada and the U.K.—accounted for four-fifths of all commercial fuel cell demand.

Earlier this year, cleantech researchers Clean Edge also forecasted spectacular growth in the fuel cell industry, heralding growth outpacing that of other renewable energy technologies, even solar, wind and biofuels (see Inside Greentech's Underdog fuel cells to outperform, says Clean Edge.)

Freedonia's report is $5,500 USD. More information here.

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