Fuel cell firm needs £12m to expand

A SCOTTISH company behind the technology used to power a London emergency response centre is looking to raise £12 million for a European expansion.

Transport for London's emergency response centre in Southwark, which played a key part in co-ordinating police and fire services during last week's riots, is powered off-grid by the latest in hydrogen fuel cell technology.

The system was engineered by Edinburgh-based Logan Energy and the firm's managing director, John Lidderdale, believes there is vast potential for the system to be deployed in buildings across Europe.

Fuel cells, which produce electricity through a chemical process, are not new and the first was patented in 1839.

But it is only now that the technology to capture and store hydrogen is allowing widespread use of fuel cells as a secure, efficient and "green" alternative. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells emit no carbon as their only by product is hot water.

Logan is the sister firm of US-based Logan Energy Corporation and Lidderdale launched the European division in 2005.

In 2008, energy giant Scottish & Southern Energy bought a 21 per cent stake in the company while Scottish Enterprise also holds 15 per cent through its co-investment fund.

Lidderdale said even though the European market for hydrogen fuel cells is slightly more developed than the UK, it still lags the US where they were used in the Nasa space programme.

He said: "We have got to the situation in the UK where serious players in property development and building engineering have begun to understand what they can do with fuel cells.

"What I want to do now is make that much more universal. I would like to take this little Scottish company and take advantage of the big opportunities across Europe to do the same thing.

"We have to do it now, or somebody else will. We are as we speak the world market leader which sounds vainglorious but I would like to become the de-facto world leader in the next five years."