Ceramic Fuel Cells Share News (CFU)

Ceramic Fuel Cells, the low emission power products developer, pulled well clear of its 52-week low after it announced it second-ever largest sales order.The company is to sell 25 of its BlueGen gas-to-electricity units to Ausgrid, the organisation formerly known as Energy Australia.The order from Ausgrid follows the company's previous purchase of a BlueGen unit for its Smart Home in the Sydney suburb of Newington.The units covered by the latest order will be installed as part of the 'Smart grid, Smart City' initiative in Australia. "We are delighted that Ausgrid has selected BlueGen units for its 'Smart Grid, Smart City' project. The distributed generation of electricity - creating electricity near the place of use, rather than centrally - is an important part of the future of smart grids."Ausgrid managing director George Maltabarow said: "We're testing whether adding distributed generation like fuel cells can make the grid more efficient by flattening out peaks in electricity demand, as well as deliver benefits to households."Broker Northland said that while the news was a welcome bit of cheer for long-suffering Ceramic Fuels shareholders, it remains difficult to get a handle on how well the company is progressing."The company has had reasonable news flow over the last three quarters but the share price has given little cause for cheer. Ceramic Fuels is forecast to be loss making in both 2011 and 2012 and the recent news flow, while showing progress, has little detail to allow either existing or potential new investors to quantify that progress in financial terms," said Simon Miller, an analyst with Northland. --jh