Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited Change in Board - New Director

RNS Number : 1509M
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited
13 September 2012
13 September 2012
Board Changes
Mr Alasdair Locke to be appointed as Director
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM / ASX: CFU) a leading developer of generators that use fuel cell technology to convert natural gas into electricity and heat for homes and other buildings, is pleased to announce that Mr Alasdair Locke has agreed to be appointed as a Non-Executive Director and proposed Chairman.
Mr Locke, based in London, is the founder and former Executive Chairman of Abbott Group plc, an oil services company which he founded in 1990. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1995 until its sale in 2008 for GBP906 million to a US Private Equity fund. At the time of the sale, Abbott Group was one of the leading oil drilling service and engineering contractors in the world employing over 8000 people and operating in over 20 countries.
Mr Locke's career started in investment banking at Citigroup in 1974, where he specialised in shipping and oil. He is also Chairman of Argenta Holdings plc, an unlisted holding company which trades in the Lloyds of London Insurance Market and non-Executive Chairman of Hardy Oil and Gas plc.
Mr Locke has personally invested in each of the Company's fundraising rounds since 2009 and he has a beneficial interest in approximately 67 million shares in the Company (approximately 4.9 percent of the Company's issued shares).
Mr Locke's appointment as Director will be formalised after the Company has released its Directors' Report for the 2012 financial year. This will be released before the end of September.
The Board intends to appoint Mr Locke as Chairman at the next Annual General Meeting, to be held in late October. Mr Locke will also become a member of the Board Audit Committee and Chairman of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee. The current Chairman, Mr Jeff Harding, and Deputy Chairman, Mr Roy Rose, will retire at the Annual General Meeting.
Mr Locke said: "I am looking forward to joining the Board and to playing my part in taking the Company forward. My experience has been in guiding companies through the exciting and at times challenging growth stage, from market entry into commercial scale production and sales. I look forward to contributing this experience to Ceramic Fuel Cells."
Ceramic Fuel Cells' Chairman, Mr Jeff Harding, said: "We are delighted to welcome Alasdair. He has strongly supported the Company and the Directors are very pleased that he has agreed to make a further commitment to Ceramic Fuel Cells by joining the Board. After five years as Chairman I am proud to be able to hand over to someone with Alasdair's experience and capability as the Board and Management focus on the Company's key markets in Europe. During my time as Chairman, we have achieved a number of firsts including developing and commercialising the BlueGen generator - which has the highest electrical efficiency of any comparable-sized generator in the world. We have also made significant inroads into the very large European markets. The outlook for the next stage in Ceramic Fuel Cells' development is exciting and we are particularly well positioned to capitalise on this potential. I would also like to acknowledge Mr Roy Rose for his valuable contribution as a Director and Deputy Chairman over the last three years."
Full details as required by the AIM Rules will be provided by separate regulatory announcement on Mr Locke's formal appointment.

Victorian Government extends Feed-in Tariff to include fuel cells

RNS Number : 3249L

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited

03 September 2012

Monday 3 September 2012

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM / ASX: CFU), a leading developer of small generators that use fuel cell technology to convert natural gas into electricity and heat for homes and other buildings, welcomes the announcement by the Victorian Government that feed-in tariffs will be extended to include small scale low emissions generators like fuel cells.

Today the Victorian Government announced that Victoria's solar feed-in tariff will be broadened to include all low-emissions and renewable technologies of less than100 kilowatts. From 1 January 2013, the new tariff will initially provide a minimum of eight cents per kilowatt hour of electricity exported to the grid, which is based on the adjusted wholesale price of electricity. The rate will then be updated each year in line with the adjusted wholesale electricity rate.

Feed-in tariffs are payments to distributed generators for electricity generated at their premises and fed back into the power grid.

The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission (VCEC), which began a review into feed-in tariffs in January this year. Ceramic Fuel Cells was involved in the consultation process with VCEC.

The new feed-in tariff will be available for all electricity generators of less than 100 kilowatts which produce 50 percent or less of the emissions intensity of electricity generation in Australia.

Ceramic Fuel Cells' BlueGen gas to electricity generator will be eligible for this feed-in tariff, making Victoria the first State in Australia to provide a feed-in tariff for fuel cells.

BlueGen customers are already eligible to receive feed-in tariffs in Germany and the United Kingdom. Both markets have recently announced increases to their feed-in tariffs. The tariff in Germany is equivalent to approximately 14 Australian cents per kilowatt hour (11.5 Euro cents), while the total tariff in the UK is up to approximately 26 Australian cents per kilowatt hour (17 pence).

Ceramic Fuel Cells' Managing Director Brendan Dow said:

We welcome the Victorian Government's decision to extend the feed-in tariff to low emissions generators like our BlueGen product. We hope that other States will follow Victoria's lead so we can further develop the market in Australia for our locally developed clean energy technology. In the meantime we will continue to build sales in our key markets of Germany and the UK.

Ceramic Fuel Cells' BlueGen product converts natural gas into electricity and heat for hot water for homes and other buildings. BlueGen delivers an electrical efficiency of up to 60 percent - higher than any other form of small scale electricity generation. When the heat from BlueGen is used to produce hot water, total efficiency increases to up to 85 percent.

BlueGen units are operating with customers in Melbourne, Shepparton, Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane, as well as in Europe, Japan and the USA. In Australia BlueGen units are available to commercial and Government customers through our distributors Harvey Norman Commercial and Hills Solar.

ENDS