Impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Investment Tax Credit on the North American non-automotive PEM fuel cell industry

The North American fuel cell industry has achieved major cost reductions while improving the durability and reliability of its products. Nevertheless, the costs of fuel cell systems and the cost and availability of hydrogen remain barriers to commercialization. Risk aversion to novel technology is also an issue. This paper estimates the impacts of government subsidies such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) on the sales of fuel cell Backup Power (BuP) and Material Handling Equipment (MHE) by North American firms. A fuel cell market model published in 2011 has been updated based on the data collected from interviews, annual reports, and published literature. The updated model integrates effects of learning-by-doing, scale economies and exogenous technological progress on component and system costs, estimates customers' choices between fuel cell and competing established technologies, and is used to measure the impacts of government policies. The combination of industry progress and government support led to rapid sales growth while industry consolidation reduced the number of firms enabling the remaining firms to achieve greater economies of scale. The ARRA is estimated to have reduced the cost of fuel cells for MHE and BuP via scale economies and learning by doing. This is estimated to induce additional sales of approximately 5600 fuel cell MHE and BuP units through 2025. If the ITC expires in 2017, it is likely to cause a sharp reduction in the sales of North American fuel cells. However, if the ITC is gradually phased out by 2022, sales could remain approximately constant during the phase-out period.