The US Department of Energy’s Fuel Cell Technologies Program has issued the third annual State of the States: Fuel Cells in America 2012 report.

The report, written by Fuel Cells 2000, details fuel cell and hydrogen activities and policies in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The report also includes an analysis of new policies and funding, recent and planned fuel cell and hydrogen installations, and activities by industry and academia.

The report confirms that in the past year in the US, there have been more than 1700 fuel cell-powered forklifts deployed or ordered, 25 fuel cell buses placed or planned for transit service, and more than 74 MW of stationary power installed or purchased.

These numbers include companies such as Apple, eBay, Coca-Cola, and Walmart, all of whom are investing in fuel cells to provide reliable power to company data centres, stores, and facilities.

Some are purchasing multi-MW systems. Others are replacing fleets of battery forklifts with fuel cells.

There are more than 1500 fuel cell forklifts in service in the top five states alone: more than 700 in California, almost 300 in Pennsylvania, and more than 250 each in Illinois, Texas, and South Carolina.

Finally, according to the quarterly Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, the fuel cell sector accounted for the largest segment of US patents for clean energy technologies in 2011, a title held since the index was launched in 2002.