SOUTHFIELD – While the corner of 11 Mile and Inkster Roads in Southfield might not look like the proving grounds for the economy of the future, DTE Energy and an array of partners are hoping that lessons learned there at the new DTE Energy Hydrogen Technology Park will help pave the way for widespread use of renewable hydrogen energy in vehicles and buildings around the world.

The unassuming complex is a test bed and research facility for the production and storage of hydrogen using renewable solar and biomass power sources, and the use of that hydrogen to refuel fuel-cell vehicles and generate electricity through fuel cells to power businesses and homes. The Hydrogen Technology Park will actually be used by DaimlerChrysler?s fuel cell vehicles as an everyday fueling station, with the capacity to refuel three vehicles a day. DCX will only have delivered 100 fuel-cell vehicles worldwide by year?s end.

While promoting the eventual benefits of hydrogen as an alternative energy source, DTE Energy and its partners in the Hydrogen Technology Park all cautioned against excessive optimism about how soon hydrogen will replace petroleum, coal, natural gas and other non-renewable energy sources in our homes, businesses and cars. ?Hydrogen is still a number of years away,? said Carol Battershell, director of alternative fuels for BP, one of the Hydrogen Technology Park partners. ?However, projects like this are the best way to move forward.?

?Thanks to this technology park, we?ll learn more about hydrogen,? said DTE Energy Chairman and CEO Anthony Earley, Jr. ?How to produce it, how to handle it, how to store it, how to use it.? Earley added that a combination of price, environmental and security pressures are increasing public and private interest in alternative fuels such as hydrogen.

While the Hydrogen Technology Park will actually generate usable electricity and refuel vehicles on a daily basis, its true long-term value will be as a research facility, said U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Acting Undersecretary David Garman, head of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

?We will be learning what works, and what doesn?t work,? he said.

The $3 million park was equally funded by DTE Energy and the DOE under the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and the Hydrogen to the Highways Program. Other partners in the park include BP, the State of Michigan, the City of Southfield, DaimlerChrysler and Lawrence Technological University, as well as a number of DTE Energy subsidiaries.

This story was written by Special Writer John Mozena.