A small fuel cell could be heading its way into your home in the coming decade that will save you lots of dollars, and maybe the environment too. That should keep both the industrial-techno climate-naysers and the climate-change evangelists happy.
The Bloom Box fuel cells have been installed at Google, eBay, FedEx, WalMart and Staples. Each one costs around US$700,000 (€517,000) and generates around 100kW of electrical output from a natural gas supply. Other fuels can be used in the fuel cell, such as ethanol.
The Bloom Box power units produce electrical power with a unit cost of US$0.09/kWh (€0.067) that is competitive with the average US$0.11/kWh (€0.082) cost from the US grid. Bloom says you can get your investment paid for in 3 to 5 years (dependent upon local electricity pricing) and their units are guaranteed for 10 years. In fact, Ebay has been using 5 of them (each one is 100kw generating capacity using 4 25kW fuel cells) for the last 9 months and they have saved the company US$100,000 (€74,000) already.
K.R. Sridhar, the CEO and ex-aerospace engineer, has been developing the technology for the last decade. He spent much of his time working on a NASA project to use Martian water in a fuel cell that produced electricity, oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to power vehicles. Their major breakthrough has been in producing a fuel cell that does not need to use exotic, expensive metals.
Bloom’s fuel cell design passes oxygen over a ceramic plate and a fuel such as natural gas (bio-gas, methane or some other hydrogen rich source such as ethanol) enters the other side. The cells ceramic disks are coated with a proprietary “ink” on either side and built into multi-layer stacks, just like other fuel cells but with a simple metal separator rather than using exotic metals. At the ceramic core is the electrode where the chemical reaction occurs at high temperature, drawing oxygen ions through the plate and generating a voltage. The Bloom Box consumes hydrocarbons as it operates and is claimed to be twice as efficient in energy use while emitting only 60% of the CO2 emissions compared with just simply burning the hydrocarbons.
The process is reversible, so if it were used with other renewable power such as a wind turbine or solar panel, the fuel cell can make and store hydrogen and oxygen that can be later used when solar or wind power is unavailable. The waste output is like other fuel cells, water (which is re-used), and CO2.
Bloom wants you to buy one for around US$3000 in the near future and put one in your home, so the fuel cell can provide the home with electricity, heat (from the chemical process) and also give electrical energy back to the local grid when needed. This is called combined heat and power (CHP) distributed power generation and makes for a more efficient use of electrical power compared to generating it in large power stations hundreds of miles from a city. Around 3-6% of electricity that is generated is ‘lost’ in transmission, so local generation is already ahead in some respects compared to large-scale power generation.
These fuel cells can also be installed in remote communities around the world, bringing electricity to places where it is too expensive to build electrical transmission grids.
An investment of US$400 million has helped Bloom get to where they are, which seems to be on the brink of getting a large slice of the ‘almost’ renewable, ‘almost’ clean energy market. Other companies around the world have similar designs and are embarking upon large scale manufacturing programs in Australia, Japan, and Europe.
To me, it sounds like a much better way to get clean energy than dirty coal, and may even be better than solar, given the energy and environmental costs of making solar photovoltaic cells along with all the batteries needed for night-time power. Wind power is too intermittent to be used by itself and mating it to a fuel system is a good idea. Nuclear power still scares people. So maybe it is time to put a fuel cell in everyone’s basement – charge up your electric vehicle directly from your own fuel cell or fill your fuel-cell car with hydrogen made in the basement!
Visit: www.bloomenergy.com
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specializing in renewable energy, power grid modeling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites. He is the author of the Eco-Geek blog.
E-bay installed 5 of these at a cost of $700K each and is saving about $135K per year? That's a 26 year payback, not 3 to 5.
What cost of fuel and power and kwhrs was assumed for the 3 to 5 year payback? Assuming $700K and 100kW used 100% of the time (8760 hrs/yr or 876,000kWhrs/yr) you need to save $0.16 to $0.27 per kWhr.
Why would a fuel cell be better than a battery for storing power from wind or solar?
What will the kW be for the residential model? 25kW?
written by Mesplay , March 01, 2010
written by Elaine Beers , March 09, 2011
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