EWE has ordered three BlueGen units, for delivery in Q2 and Q3 of 2010. EWE will install and operate the BlueGen units in EWE facilities and family homes in northwestern Germany.

Ceramic Fuel Cells sees BlueGen as a breakthrough in small-scale electricity generation. About the size of a dishwasher, each BlueGen unit can produce twice the electricity needed to power an average home, with the surplus electricity being sold back to the grid. BlueGen also produces heat, to make enough hot water for an average home.

BlueGen units can generate electricity more efficiently than the current European power grid, significantly reducing a home’s carbon emissions and cutting energy bills. Ceramic Fuel Cells says that it has achieved the highest electrical efficiency of any small-scale power and heat products on the market.

Ceramic Fuel Cells has been working with EWE since 2005. EWE is one of five German utilities participating in the Callux project, launched in late 2008 by the German federal government to help prepare the route to market for manufacturers of fuel cell residential CHP systems and energy suppliers. Ceramic Fuel Cells has built a solid oxide fuel cell volume manufacturing plant in Germany, at Heinsberg in the Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) region.

The VicUrban sustainable urban development agency in Australia is installing three BlueGen units at housing development sites in Melbourne; the first was installed before Christmas at VicUrban’s Aurora development. And Energy Australia has ordered a BlueGen unit for a showcase sustainability house in the Sydney suburb of Newington, with delivery expected by the end of March.