Despite the global economic slowdown, the fuel cell industry grew by over 40% in 2009.

Fuel Cell Today's (FCT) industry review, "Fuel Cells: Sustainability", that was released this week, reveals that shipments of fuel cell systems last year were about 24,000 units or 41% higher than in 2008.

Most of the units to date were manufactured in Asia, where production of stationary fuel cells has been stimulated by the Japanese government's subsidy program. In Europe, the leisure industry was affected by the economic crisis and shipments of transport auxiliary power units for recreational vehicles have fallen.

In North America, there has been an increase in shipments of stationary uninterruptible power supply units and fuel cells for forklifts, both applications supported by US federal funding.

FCT principal analyst Dr Kerry-Ann Adamson says the research organisation anticipates millions of portable fuel cell units being shipped by 2014, with a heavy dominance of portable fuel cells.

She says FCT anticipates over 1.5GW of shipments in stationary applications by the end of the forecast period. "All of this points to the vitality of the fuel cell industry over the next five years, with positive implications in the longer term for job creation and emissions reduction."

FCT claims that its review is the only report that benchmarks the state of the global fuel cell industry in terms of shipments, supply chain and manufacturing availability, and five-year market forecasts.