Nissan powers tugs with Oorja’s fuel cells

Franklin, Tenn.-based Nissan North America said today it’s the first vehicle manufacturer to commercially deploy methanol fuel cells to power its material handling equipment, which are commonly referred to as tugs.

The 60 tugs operate at its Smyrna, Tenn.-based assembly plant transporting parts across the 5.4 million-square-foot facility.

Fremont, Calif.-based Oorja Protonics makes the methanol fuel cells, which the company said provide a more energy efficient and cost effective battery-charging process for the tugs. Financial details of the arrangement between Nissan and Oorja were not disclosed.

Oorja’s fuel cells underwent an 18-month trial at the Smyrna plant before being officially deployed.

Oorja Protonics’ product, called the OorjaPac, operates on liquid methanol. It functions as an on-board battery charger, so that it “trickle-charges” a vehicle’s battery while it is running or parked (see Oorja unveils methanol fuel cell).

Nissan said the product puts less strain on the electrical system of the tugs, increasing the life of the battery and other electrical parts.

Nissan North America, which markets 11 vehicle lines through 1,100 dealers in the continental United States, is affiliated with Tokyo, Japan-based Nissan Motor.

"We are excited to take our relationship with Nissan to the next level, and proud to play such a pivotal role in Nissan's environmental initiatives," said Oorja’s founder and CEO Sanjiv Malhotra, in a news release. "Our OorjaPac system gives Nissan the opportunity to increase productivity and realize a strong return on investment."

Founded in 2005, Oorja is on its fifth generation product with customers including Fortune 50 companies in the retail, automotive, logistics, and food processing industries (see Oorja gets approval to sell fuel cells in Europe).

The private company is backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Spring Ventures, McKenna Management and DAG Ventures (see Another week, another three Khosla biofuel investments).

Nissan said by using the OorjaPac it expects to be able to do away with more than 70 electric battery chargers that consume almost 540,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. In addition to reducing Nissan's electricity bill, saving time for battery technicians and streamlining material-handling operations, it’s also expected to eliminate more than 300 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

Nissan said its Smyrna plant has improved its energy efficiency by as much as 32 percent since 2005, while saving more than $3.5 million per year.

In June, Nissan received $1.6 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy in conditional loan commitments. Nissan said it plans to put the funds to work building advanced electric vehicles and battery packs at its Smyrna facility (see Who is next for $17B in DOE auto loans?).