Klickitat Valley Health is located just miles from the Columbia River Gorge, a scenic rural area nestled between mountains and volcanoes roughly two hours from Portland, Ore.

The rural location creates the need for an emergency power source which is why the hospital, located in Goldendale, Wash., partnered with Rehlko and Toyota Motor North America to develop and install a hydrogen-powered fuel cell system.

A hydrogen fuel cell from Rehlko was a solution for the non-profit healthcare provider because of its high efficacy, long-range performance and zero-emission operations.

“There’s only one way in and out and if there’s a natural disaster, they’d be out of luck until trucks could come with fuel if they used a diesel generator,” Rehlko business development manager Benjamin Rapp said earlier this year.

“Additionally, this is the only hospital for about 45 miles; you can actually see four volcanoes from the hospital and so there’s a big range of potential risks they have to plan for in case of an emergency.”

This project is the first Rehlko fuel cell for commercial use. The system is suitable for a broad range of mission-critical power users, which includes hospitals, data centers and water treatment plants. The system is also suitable for any application requiring sustainable and resilient prime or backup power such as shore power, microgrids and remote electric vehicle charging.

“We’re demonstrating this new technology in a normal performance setting to showcase its ability to provide sustainable power in these kinds of mission-critical applications,” Rapp said.

Rapp added: “KVH selected the fuel cell because they’re very focused on sustainable energy resilience, and this is exactly what the fuel cell is able to do. It has performance capabilities to start up on demand, provide backup power and energy resilience but also on the backend it is emission less only producing heat and water vapor.”

A former Kohler Co. business unit focused on the global energy resilience marketplace, Platinum Equity entered into an investment partnership with Kohler in 2023, and the new standalone company was rebranded Rehlko.