Executive Summary Abstract

HyGen Industries
Renewable Energy Developers

P.O. Box 6911 Eureka, Ca. 95502	Ph: 707-667-5329 e-mail: h24u@hygen.com

Worlds First Commercially Permitted Solar Hydrogen Generating Facility, Fueling Station and Hydrogen Powered Vehicle Fleet at Xerox Facilities in El Segundo, California (Top). The Santa Monica Hydrogen Program & Project (Below).

HyGen Industries, a California Company, is organized to produce and distribute renewable hydrogen fuel and generation technologies, and systems to meet the ever-increasing demand for cost effective, clean renewable energy and transportation fuel. HyGen will also market the systems that produce, dispense, distribute, and use hydrogen as a fuel.

HyGen's vision is to help establish the a pilot commercial scale renewable hydrogen generating and distribution network, which will include: up to 100 hydrogen fueling stations installed at customer convenient locations throughout California. These facilities will be strategically located at current fueling stations in urban areas and along freeways. These facilities will establish at the commercial level what has already been demonstrated successfully at the 40kW Xerox El Segundo facility (the HyGen Team is mostly the same team that developed the project under Clean Air Now), and the City of Santa Monica Project and Program (which HyGen developed) and the Five City Southern California Program (developed out of the Santa Monica Project) – that hydrogen can be generated increasingly economically and safely using renewable energy in larger systems. Renewable power will be provided by various projects planned i.e., expansion to the Gigawatt (GW) scale through a plan to site large renewable energy (solar, wind) facilities near Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a 2.5GW wind facility is proposed and planned in the desert, as well as facilities proposed and planned in California, and other locations throughout the SW. Renewable power (especially off peak generated renewable power) will be wheeled to power the fueling stations.

This network of fueling stations is intended to capture part of the multi-billion dollar market that is supported by federal, state and local mandates for alternative energy and clean fuels for transportation. These mandates are in effect now and are expected to increase over the next decade. Also, with the Obama administration committed to renewable energy and fuels development and expansion on a level never seen before, ($15 billion/yr. in renewable energy only), and hundreds of billions in infrastructure development within the stimulus package, as well as billions for the auto industry with an expected requirement to deploy more efficient, cleaner fueled vehicles – who have already invested billions into hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, funding to support this effort should be more forthcoming than in the past. Whether in low interest loans, cooperative agreements, public/private partnerships, or as grants; why? Because renewable/sustainable hydrogen, the ultimate zero-emission fuel, will exceed all existing federal and state clean air standards, as well as establish a truly sustainable renewable energy and fueling infrastructure, as well as to meet the administration’s goal to be free of Middle East oil within a decade. We plan to work with auto dealerships/manufacturers to offer incentives for fuel purchasing. This would be viewed positively by the DOE.

Currently, our primary start-up market for hydrogen is California (although we are open to deployment elsewhere if the conditions are favorable). However, our goal is to incrementally expand throughout the nation and the world. In order to produce this environmentally benign hydrogen fuel, natural resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and marine energy will be harnessed. We also propose to advocate that the DOE fund, through the coming energy plan, as well as the recently approved stimulus package, a major mass production facility of developed cutting edge photovoltaic (PV) technologies validated by Sandia and NREL, in order to produce high efficiency PVs (30 – 40%), and low cost PVs at a price that will compete with fossil fuels, i.e., $1.00 - $3.00/watt.

Others, including a fuel distributor, are in the process of being recruited, and will be announced soon. Our venture is divided into 2 phases: Start-Up Phase, and Operation Phase. The following highlights major activities that we plan to accomplish for each phase.

Upon completion of this phase, we will be ready to procure the equipment for and install the up to 100 fueling stations in locations consistent with Governor Schwarzenegger’s Hydrogen Highway Program, as well as the D.O.E. and advocates “Hydrogen Infrastructure Cluster” approach which focuses on high density urban deployment. We will also be ready to convert vehicles to run on hydrogen. The vehicles will be converted either through OEM Converters, or directly from the OEM utilizing technology developed by HyGen’s team, as well as introduce to the market hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (HFCEVS) that OEMs have invested billions developing as per the agreement that they signed with the ARB instead of being required to deploy battery electric vehicles which failed to sell when introduced in the 1990s due to operational and performance limitations. This phase will take 18 months to complete. Some of this work has already been completed.

The Operation Phase will take up to two years to achieve with the first year procuring the equipment and one year for installing the fueling stations, and to implement the detailed operational and market development plans completed during the Start-Up Phase. We plan to be in full operation in year 3 of this phase.

In addition, in the full commercialization phase, HyGen plans to invest in generating electricity from renewable sources, supplemented with additional energy from renewable resources, and transmit them via grid to our fueling station customers. We expect to be able to generate hydrogen for retail sale at about $3.00 - $4.00/kg (kilogram = a little more than a gallon of gasoline equivalent = gge), if mass production of PVs is funded, lower energy prices will lower this cost significantly to below $2.00/gge in the full commercialization phase.

Employment Estimate: Although the estimate is preliminary and, we estimate to produce over 100 full time and 50 part time (1.5 FTE/Station) permanent jobs for trained technicians to maintain the 100 initial fueling stations throughout California, as well as over 1,000 full time jobs over the duration of the manufacture and installation of the facilities, increasing as the expansion of the network continues to grow.

A curriculum will be developed for educational institutions, which will be invited to participate, to train engineering students to install and maintain these facilities, as well as training technicians for day to day maintenance and future project development.

During this phase, we will be monitoring closely the viability of the operation and improving on the systems design of the distributed network concept. Our plan is to be ready for The Full Commercialization Phase implementation by the fourth year of the Operation Phase.

The Full Commercialization Phase constitutes the full-scale deployment and/or expansion of the pilot network into full-scale deployment at all gasoline stations nation wide. Upon the advent of this phase we will ask legislatures to pass regulations requiring all licensed fuel distributors to provide access to their outlets to install these fueling facilities at all locations, whether paid for by themselves or by independent contractors, or the government.

Currently, we are seeking funding for both the Start-Up Phase and the Operation Phase.

· Contracts/purchasing agreements from end use customers for system installations, vehicle conversions, and fuel purchases. In normal time, this accomplishment should be bankable at many commercial financial institutions, or for a successful IPO, or second funding phase. However this should be very attractive for federal funding from the DOE.

· Licensing of technologies that will make HyGen uniquely competitive for years to come.

· Contracts from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to produce vehicle conversions in mass production for distribution to their fleet customers as well as to the general public, and generation for fueling stations.

· Blueprints and permit approvals for the siting of the fueling facilities, as well as blueprints for remote distribution facilities and/or fueling stations.

The second phase funds will be used to procure equipment, construct and install the fueling stations. Also fund general and administrative related expenses.