With hydrogen cars from Honda, GM, BMW and others hitting the roads, what can be more poetic than traffic signals powered by fuel cells? There are many remote traffic signals on the road that don’t have access to the power grid, so they must use batteries which must be changed quite often.
SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG has addressed this issue with its EFOY Pro Series fuel cells. Now, instead of changing batteries every 1 to 2 days as they do on the Autobahn in Germany, with the EFOY fuel cell, it only needs to be recharged every 50 days.
This is estimated to save at least 100 man hours per month in maintenance. The traffic signal fuel cells can also operate in -20 C temperatures accommodating the coldest of climates in which drivers can be found.
Right now, fuel cells can also be found as main or backup power in over 400 cell phone towers because of Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing Katrina Act. This act stated that cell phone towers, critical in emergency applications, have enough backup power for at least 8 hours.
So, one day in the not so distance future, drivers of fuel cell vehicles will be pulling up to fuel cell powered traffic lights and talking to friends and love ones via fuel cell powered cell phone towers. And it’s really not that far off.