A PureCell fuel cell from UTC Power is installed outside a building. United Technologies Corp. is selling its South Windsor, Conn.-based UTC Power subsidiary to Oregon-based ClearEdge Power.
By HOWARD FRENCH
Special to The Republican
SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. - United Technologies Corp. has announced an agreement to sell its fuel cell manufacturing subsidiary, UTC Power, to Oregon's ClearEdge Power, the company says.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the future owners plan to maintain the operation under the ClearEdge name, a company official said last week.
"We plan to have operations on both coasts," ClearEdge spokesman Neal Starling said.
The Oregon company intends to retain the South Windsor operation's 400 employees, including 100 hourly workers belonging to the machinists' union and 300 salaried employees.
In a brief news release about the sale, UTC spokesman John Moran said the company's divestiture of UTC Power "is another step forward in UTC's ongoing portfolio transformation to focus on its core of aerospace and building systems."
The transaction is expected to be finalized early in 2013, according to Moran.
"Until the sale is closed, UTC Power will remain part of the UTC portfolio and continue to support customers, deliver products, and otherwise continue business as usual," he said.
ClearEdge Power President and Chief Executive Officer David B. Wright gave no clues to his plans for the South Windsor plant in a separate news release.
"We are excited about the strategic combination of ClearEdge Power and UTC Power to address the demand for clean, continuous, distributed power solutions," Wright said.
"The wealth of talent, intellectual capital, and technology platforms enables us to provide highly innovative product and service solutions to our customers."
ClearEdge Power is privately owned and provides "distributed energy generation solutions to commercial, institutional, and residential customers," its website says.
UTC Chief Executive Officer Louis Chenevert said in May that UTC Power might be among assets sold to help finance UTC's $18 billion acquisition of Goodrich Corp.
Machinists union members at the plant this month approved a new three-year contract giving hourly workers a 2 percent raise each year, Mike Stone, assistant directing business representative for the Machinists union's District 26, said. It also included a $1,500 one-time signing bonus and improvements to 401(k) contributions.
The union also was able to secure language providing for the continued employment of some workers in case of a sale, Stone said at the time the contract was approved.
UTC Power has been in operation since 1966 and was known as UTC Fuel Cells until 2004. It makes fuel cells for on-site power, transportation, space and defense uses.
Fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical process to produce electricity, heat and water without combustion and with nearly no air pollution.
UTC also signed an agreement in December to sell its East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney Power Systems unit to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which will combine it with its Mitsubishi Power Systems division based in Savannah, Ga.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has said it plans to keep the former Pratt & Whitney Power operation in place for now. It employs about 140 workers in East Hartford and 140 outside Connecticut.
The Pratt Power Systems sale is to be completed in the second quarter of 2013, Pratt officials said.
The sale's financial details also were not disclosed, although a Thompson-Reuters report cited unidentified sources familiar with the matter as saying the deal could generate as much as $1 billion for UTC.
Pratt Power Systems makes industrial gas turbines and geothermal power systems based on Pratt's jet engine technology; the systems generate electricity for businesses and cities.