Atlanta notches a renewable-energy coup

By Dan Chapman

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta scored a renewable energy coup Tuesday when HydroPhi Technology Inc., a little-known hydrogen energy company with huge potential, said it will establish its headquarters, R&D center and factory here, eventually creating 300 jobs.

HydroPhi’s choice raises Georgia’s alternative-energy profile. The state is well-known for turning trees into electricity. Suniva, in Norcross, is a respected solar cell producer. GE Energy invests millions of dollars annually in search of a solar, wind or nuclear Holy Grail.

But hydrogen -- the most abundant element in the universe -- remains largely a commercially unproven commodity. HydroPhi is betting it can reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil and gas, improve the environment and create jobs.

“We’ve figured out a successful technology to use water as the raw material for energy,” said Suresh Sharma, CEO of HydroPhi. “Hydrogen enhances fuel efficiency, and emissions drop significantly. That’s the value proposition here. In a disciplined and robust way, we are on the cutting edge.”

Questions, though, abound. Is the technology feasible? Is it commercially applicable? Will vehicle-makers embrace it? And will hydrogen-powered vehicles be reasonably priced?

“Their technology will only succeed on a commercial scale if the vehicles can be manufactured at a price consumers are willing to pay,” said Patrick Serfass, vice president of the Washington-based National Hydrogen Association. He had never heard of the company until Tuesday and promptly called Sharma for more information.

“They have a very interesting collection of technologies,” Serfass added. “They could provide some very attractive results to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel imports and maybe even create some jobs.”

HydroPhi is a smallish, 2-year-old company with 14 employees. It is nominally headquartered in Pasadena, Texas, but the brains -- the inventors and engineers -- reside in Maine.

Atlanta was chosen for reasons prosaic and profound. Some startup capital and potential customers -- “We are fairly well capitalized in terms of resources” is all Sharma would say about financing -- hail from Georgia. Plus, Georgia Tech was a major draw.

HydroPhi has leased 8,000 square feet in Doraville where its hydrogen technology will be further developed. Within three years, according to Sharma, who helped establish Atlanta’s Innovolt Inc., an electrical surge protector company, HydroPhi will employ 300 people. Two hundred are slotted as factory workers, 50 as designers and engineers and another 50 as salesmen, marketers and administrative staff.

Sharma said contracts will be signed and deals announced within two months. Tax breaks and other incentives used to lure the company here remain to be ironed out.

“They represent a new alternative-energy platform. There are no commercially [viable] companies that I know of in the Southeast that will manufacture hydroelectric batteries,” said David Hartnett, a Metro Atlanta Chamber vice president who began recruiting HydroPhi more than a year ago. “We are becoming a magnet for the intellect to support and commercialize these types of technologies.”

Hartnett and Sharma said Georgia Tech, professor Meilin Liu in particular, proved critical in bringing HydroPhi to Atlanta. Liu is co-director of the school’s Center for Innovative Fuel Cell and Battery Technologies. Tech’s interconnected web of battery, combustion, emissions and materials research centers, as well as its burgeoning ability to bring highfalutin concepts to market, sold HydroPhi on Atlanta.

How the company turns hydrogen into fuel isn’t easily explainable to the layman -- by either Sharma or the hydrogen association’s Serfass. Basically, the company has patented two techniques that rely upon electrons, plasma and electromagnetics to generate hydrogen.

One technology serves as a miniature power plant that works with, or partially replaces, a vehicle’s battery without plugging into the country’s electric grid. The other generates hydrogen and oxygen “on demand,” via an electrolysis unit, water reservoir, sound wave generator and battery, without risk of explosion.

Each, according to HydroPhi, allows vehicles to run 100 miles on a gallon of gas (or diesel). They can be used with RVs, heavy equipment, electric cars, ATVs and bicycles. HydroPhi successfully replaced the engine of a Ford 500 sedan with hydrogen-powered, lead-acid batteries, Sharma said.

The company’s technology is much different than the better-known hydrogen cell technology that many companies, including Atlanta-based UPS, are considering for a portion of their vehicle fleets.

Sharma expects commercial application within 18 months.

“The next generation of innovation in the 21st century ought to be centered around affordability -- and it must be transformational,” he said. “We cannot just keep on having high carbon footprint applications, like [today’s] automobiles or home-power generation. Since we use a raw material which is abundantly available -- hydrogen -- we are transformational to the industry.”