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7/31/201315,793,524 1,286,054 12.280607 §
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6/28/201314,410,740 4,506,318 3.197897 §
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3/15/2013 8,553,661 1,089,638 7.850002 §
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1/31/2013 8,211,829 1,144,235 7.176698 §
1/15/2013 8,524,179 2,241,208 3.803386 §
12/31/2012 8,827,634 1,398,138 6.313850 §
12/14/2012 9,660,474 997,738 9.682376 §
11/30/2012 9,689,238 654,153 14.811883 §
11/15/2012 9,231,078 1,658,725 5.565165 §
10/31/2012 8,818,933 540,438 16.318122 §
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9/28/2012 8,414,499 745,385 11.288796 §
9/14/2012 8,844,985 1,346,914 6.566852 §
8/31/2012 9,341,215 1,149,872 8.123700 §
8/15/2012 9,433,562 798,651 11.811870
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by Kevin Lee, 08/14/13
filed under: energy efficiency, green technology, Green Transportation, News
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fuel cell, green energy, aerogel, fuel cell, hyrdrogen, oxygen, Dresden University, Paul Scherrer Institute, platinum, palladium
Fuel cells could be one of the our cleanest energy sources; they convert hydrogen into electricity, and their only waste byproduct is water. One of the biggest things holding back the technology, however, is the problem that fuel cells require expensive rare earth metals like platinum. Now a team of international researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute is developing a new aerogel-based fuel cell that’s five times more efficient than conventional fuel cells, and it uses a bare minimum of rare earth metals.
Each oxygen atom from the oxygen molecules fed into the cell captures two electrons, which is followed by the reaction with hydrogen nuclei to form water.
Ads by Googleeu.fab.com
fuel cell, green energy, aerogel, fuel cell, hyrdrogen, oxygen, Dresden University, Paul Scherrer Institute, platinum, palladium
Typically a fuel cell works by combining oxygen with hydrogen in a chemical bonding process that creates free electrons to power the vehicle, and leaves water coming out of the tail pipe as the only waste material. This reaction happens regularly in nature, but it goes extremely slowly, so a fuel cell needs a catalyst to kick start the chemical reaction and make it all go faster. In these conventional cells, the catalyst is made of a rare metal such as platinum. On top of being scarce and expensive, this catalytic material also needs to be built on top of a high surface area carbon, which is corrosive and can shorten the lifespan of the fuel cell.
A team of researchers at PSI and Dresden University overcame these obstacles by replacing the carbon with a three dimensional aerogel block. When combined with a platinum palladium alloy, the scientists discovered that the new material increased the efficiency of a regular fuel cell by five times. This opens up the possibility of creating a new fuel cell using just one-fifth of the the necessary platinum – reducing the costs and environmental impact of the fuel cell.
The scientists theorize that the aerogel material works so well because of it’s own inherent qualities as a nano-structured foam. So far, the aerogel material has proven itself and even passed long-term tests in the lab simulating the conditions of an operating vehicle. The scientists meanwhile want to take a closer study at their aerogel block, particularly to investigate the stability that might come with a bimetal material, in a three year study they currently are drafting and proposing for funding now.
via PhysOrg
Images © Paul Scherrer Institute
Read more: New Aerogel Fuel Cell Boasts 5x the Efficiency of Conventional Fuel Cells | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building
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Trigeneration Project Using Landfill Gas Powered Fuel Cells
Sponsored by
With the promise of ultra-low emission power generation, fuel cells have long been the holy grail of the power industry. But the hydrogen requirements of traditional low temperature units have been something of a stumbling block. That's a problem one U.S. based company has solved with its high temperature carbonate fuel cell.
by Ben Messenger
When it comes to generating power from biogas, whether it's been produced by an anaerobic digester or by the decomposing waste in a landfill, the established route is to simply use it to fuel a conventional reciprocating gas engine. It's a well-trodden path and proven to work. But it's not without its drawbacks. For the more adventurous project developer gas turbines of various types are an option, and there are also a growing number of projects successfully upgrading biogas for grid injection. But that's pretty much where the options end. Or so I thought.
Fuel Cells Arrive in the promised landfill
So when I heard about a U.S. fuel cell specialist that's planning to use the technology to not only generate electricity and heat from landfill gas, but also to export hydrogen for transport and industrial uses, I was keen to find out more.
The Holy Grail of energy
Fuel cells are not new technology. Invented by German Physicist, Christian Friedrich Schönbein they have been under development since 1838 - just 15 years less than the internal combustion engine. But unlike the internal combustion engine they have remained a relatively niche technology.
However, while the difficulties of economically producing and storing the large quantities of hydrogen required by traditional low temperature fuel cells has hindered their commercial success, thanks to the promise of near zero emission power generation, the commercialisation of the technology has become something of a 'holy grail'. But now, thanks to its fuel-flexible technology, that's a prize Danbury, Connecticut based FuelCell Energy believes it may just have one hand on.
Speaking to WMW Tony Leo, vice president of application engineering and new technology development at FuelCell Energy explains: "At the end of the day what's going to react with a fuel electrode is hydrogen. So what fuel cell developers have been doing is looking for a variety of different ways to get hydrogen from commonly available fuels. Our particular type of fuel cell, which is called the carbonate fuel cell, runs at a temperature that allows us to extract hydrogen from methane fuels easily, right inside the fuel cell stack."
The problem with producing hydrogen from methane - which is a molecule consisting of four hydrogen atoms and one carbon - is that the systems necessary can be efficiency reducing and expensive. But it's a problem Leo says Fuel Cell Energy has cracked.
"We send methane into our fuel cell stack and there's a reaction that occurs in the stack. The methane reacts with water. All the hydrogen in the water and the methane separate out and become pure hydrogen, and the oxygen in the water reacts with the carbon in the methane to become carbon dioxide," he explains.
"Our systems are designed to do that from almost any methane fuel. We can use natural gas, which is almost all methane or we can use biogas from anaerobic digestion, and that's maybe 60% methane or we can use landfill gas, which can be anywhere from 45% to 50% methane," adds Leo.
High efficiency, low emissions
The basic idea behind a fuel cell is that it makes electricity without burning the fuel. According to Leo that gives it two main advantages over more conventional combustion based power generation - high efficiency and low emissions.
"Usually if you want to make electricity you burn the fuel and you take that heat and maybe you boil water and spin a steam turbine, or maybe you expand the hot gases in an engine or a gas turbine. But all those steps, burning and making pressurised gas and spinning a turbine, which spins a shaft, which spins a generator – all those steps lose efficiency. Plus the flame associated with burning the fuel makes things like nitrogen oxide and particulates," he says.
Leo analogises the process to that which occurs in a battery. For example, if nickel and cadmium are mixed together they produce heat. In a battery the two elements are kept separate by an electrolyte which causes a flow of electrons.
In a fuel cell the fuel goes into one compartment where there is a reaction that consumes the fuel and makes electrons. Air goes into another compartment where there's another reaction that consumes the oxygen in the air, as well as the electrons produced by the fuel electrode. That production and consumption of electrons is what drives the power circuit and produces electricity in a very efficient single step.
Moving into landfill
The company has already developed many facilities which use natural gas, and is increasingly taking on larger scale projects of up to 60 MW. According to Leo, the natural gas applications are now widely understood and accepted. However, the other area in which the company is very active is the wastewater treatment market, where it has a number of projects in California which are running on biogas produced by the anaerobic digestion of municipal wastewater.
But anaerobic digesters are not the only source of biogas that the company has had its eye on, and for some time has been contemplating the prospect of developing a landfill gas project.
"Landfill gas can be a little trickier than municipal wastewater gas because it can be a little more variable. Gas production from a landfill typically has a finite life so you have to predict what it's going to look like over time. There's also some contaminants that are a little unique," explains Leo.
"So while we've focused on municipal wastewater applications over the years, we've kept our eye on landfills and every so often a landfill opportunity would pop up," he continues.
To that end, back in February this year the company signed a contract to demonstrate a 300 kW tri-generation stationary fuel cell plant at a landfill near Vancouver, Canada. The project will utilise landfill gas as the fuel source and generate electricity for export to the grid, heat for use by Village Farms' nearby hydroponic greenhouse facility and hydrogen for vehicle fuelling or industrial applications.
Once operational the facility is expected to produce around 135 kg of hydrogen per day - enough to fuel around 30 cars or five buses under normal usage.
Landfill gas clean up
Thanks to some of the unique impurities that Leo says are found in landfill gas, prior to use in the fuel cell it needs to be cleaned. The company responsible for performing the gas clean-up is FuelCell Energy's partner and prime contractor for the project, Vancouver based Quadrogen Power Systems, which builds and installs biogas clean-up solutions capable of purifying renewable fuels.
"It's an advanced clean up system which requires a little bit of hydrogen. The fact that we're making hydrogen allows this type of technology to be easily deployed. We like to call it hydrogen assisted gas clean-up," explains Leo.
"We send a very small amount of the hydrogen back, which is mixed with the landfill gas that's being cleaned up and the hydrogen reacts with the impurities and converts them to a much more simple molecule which can easily be absorbed. It's an advanced approach to cleaning up these dirty biogases that really enables us to think about looking at lower quality gas streams," he continues.
The two companies have previously worked together on a wastewater biogas project for the Orange County Sanitation District in California (OCSD). That project became the first fuel cell powered, hydrogen energy station to be successfully developed at a wastewater treatment plant. Air Products and the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California Irvine also participated in the OCSD project.
Quadgeneration?
Not satisfied with using just three of the fuel cell's outputs, the project is going one step further and taking advantage of something which could have been considered one of its few negative environmental impacts - its CO2 emissions.
"This landfill project is interesting because in some respects it's a quadgeneration project. We're making electricity, heat and hydrogen, but also Village Farms are going to use the CO2 from our exhaust in their greenhouse. It's going to be blended with air and sent into the greenhouse to promote more rapid growth of the plants," says Leo.
Start up and maintenance
One of the big advantages of a fuel cell is that with no moving parts, the maintenance schedule is less demanding than for a reciprocating engine or a turbine. However, high temperature fuel cells cannot simply be turned on and off at the drop of a hat.
"Because we run at 1000°F (538°C) we have to heat our cells up to that temperature, so when we start the fuel cell up it takes a few days to get up to operating temperature. But once it's got there it pretty much stays there until you need to cool it down to replace the key cell components in about five years," explains Leo.
2.8 MW system FuelCell Energy
A 2.8 MW system that FuelCell Energy installed at a wastewater treatement plant Chino, California
"There's no routine maintenance that requires it to be cooled down. If we need to stop making electricity, say if there's a problem with the grid, we just put it into hot stand-by and keep it going with a little bit of fuel," he adds.
The units are expected to see around 95% uptime. Typically uptime will be in the high 90s during the regular generation years, and drop to the low 90s in the year that the restack maintenance is performed. When the stacks are replaced, the company takes the old modules back to its factory and opens them up to remove the old cells, which are recycled by a smelting plant back into stainless steel.
Permits and finance
The project has been financially backed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which is providing a repayable contribution through the government of Canada's Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program. This aims to help the Canadian agricultural sector adapt and remain competitive. In British Columbia, this program is delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation.
An additional significant contribution from the Canadian government has come from its National Research Council. Other project partners include Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), and BC Bioenergy Network.
With regard to permitting a fuel cell project, Leo says that there are some specific regulations for safety, which are very similar to the same types of regulations for other equipment. Additionally, when the company delivers a fuel cell it has a certification stamp on it which demonstrates that it meets certain equipment safety standards.
"The only real difference is that in a lot of locations, and more and more as people come to understand the fuel cell benefits, a lot of the permitting activities are waived, like air permitting activities and so forth. In Connecticut and California air permitting are waived because it's just understood that fuel cells are very very low emission devices," comments Leo.
"In the State of California, when we come out with a new product we get that product tested by a third party who certifies us for the State of California that we meet very very low emission levels," he adds.
Windows of opportunity
Thanks to its ability to use biogas in fuel cells, the company's technology has caught the eye of Microsoft - a major consumer of energy at its data centres. According to Leo, when the software giant happened to be installing one such data centre in the Cheyenne, Wyoming area, which happened to be in close proximity to a wastewater treatment plant, it got in touch to explore the possibilities of fuel cell generation.
"They kind of put two and two together and said why don't we do a 'kick the tyre' project at the wastewater treatment plant and we can see how your fuel cell runs on anaerobic digester gas, and we can see how your fuel cell powers our data centre," says Leo.
Microsoft's evaluation process starts with a sub megawatt system, so it's installing a mini data centre at the wastewater treatment plant which will consume around 200 kW to pilot the technology. The fuel cell itself will be a 300 kW unit with the remaining 100 kW of capacity being fed to the wastewater plant. The demonstration project should be up and running later this year.
Conclusions
According to a recent report on the global market for fuel cells, the stationary fuel cell prime power market is experiencing rapid growth. The research evaluated 17 of the leading players in the market, and ranked FuelCell Energy top for both execution and strategy.
Having taken a closer look at this particular project, with its clever siting which allows it to make full use of not only its primary output of electricity, but also the by-products of heat and CO2 - all while exporting hydrogen for other uses - that assessment would seem plausible.
For years fuel cells have dangled the carrot of low emission power generation. Now, with the industry as a whole developing a wide variety of innovative projects, soon the time may finally be here when the technology delivers and takes us to the promised land of low emission, renewable energy.
Ben Messenger is Managing Editor of WMW Magazine
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With the promise of ultra-low emission power generation, fuel cells have long been the holy grail of the power industry. But the hydrogen requirements of traditional low temperature units have been something of a stumbling block. That's a problem one U.S. based company has solved with its high temperature carbonate fuel cell.by Ben MessengerWhen it comes to generating power from biogas, whether it's been produced by an anaerobic digester or by the decomposing waste in a landfill, the established route is to simply use it to fuel a conventional reciprocating gas engine. It's a well-trodden path and proven to work. But it's not without its drawbacks. For the more adventurous project developer gas turbines of various types are an option, and there are also a growing number of projects successfully upgrading biogas for grid injection. But that's pretty much where the options end. Or so I thought.Fuel Cells Arrive in the promised landfillSo when I heard about a U.S. fuel cell specialist that's planning to use the technology to not only generate electricity and heat from landfill gas, but also to export hydrogen for transport and industrial uses, I was keen to find out more.The Holy Grail of energyFuel cells are not new technology. Invented by German Physicist, Christian Friedrich Schönbein they have been under development since 1838 - just 15 years less than the internal combustion engine. But unlike the internal combustion engine they have remained a relatively niche technology.However, while the difficulties of economically producing and storing the large quantities of hydrogen required by traditional low temperature fuel cells has hindered their commercial success, thanks to the promise of near zero emission power generation, the commercialisation of the technology has become something of a 'holy grail'. But now, thanks to its fuel-flexible technology, that's a prize Danbury, Connecticut based FuelCell Energy believes it may just have one hand on.Speaking to WMW Tony Leo, vice president of application engineering and new technology development at FuelCell Energy explains: "At the end of the day what's going to react with a fuel electrode is hydrogen. So what fuel cell developers have been doing is looking for a variety of different ways to get hydrogen from commonly available fuels. Our particular type of fuel cell, which is called the carbonate fuel cell, runs at a temperature that allows us to extract hydrogen from methane fuels easily, right inside the fuel cell stack."The problem with producing hydrogen from methane - which is a molecule consisting of four hydrogen atoms and one carbon - is that the systems necessary can be efficiency reducing and expensive. But it's a problem Leo says Fuel Cell Energy has cracked."We send methane into our fuel cell stack and there's a reaction that occurs in the stack. The methane reacts with water. All the hydrogen in the water and the methane separate out and become pure hydrogen, and the oxygen in the water reacts with the carbon in the methane to become carbon dioxide," he explains."Our systems are designed to do that from almost any methane fuel. We can use natural gas, which is almost all methane or we can use biogas from anaerobic digestion, and that's maybe 60% methane or we can use landfill gas, which can be anywhere from 45% to 50% methane," adds Leo.High efficiency, low emissionsThe basic idea behind a fuel cell is that it makes electricity without burning the fuel. According to Leo that gives it two main advantages over more conventional combustion based power generation - high efficiency and low emissions."Usually if you want to make electricity you burn the fuel and you take that heat and maybe you boil water and spin a steam turbine, or maybe you expand the hot gases in an engine or a gas turbine. But all those steps, burning and making pressurised gas and spinning a turbine, which spins a shaft, which spins a generator – all those steps lose efficiency. Plus the flame associated with burning the fuel makes things like nitrogen oxide and particulates," he says.Leo analogises the process to that which occurs in a battery. For example, if nickel and cadmium are mixed together they produce heat. In a battery the two elements are kept separate by an electrolyte which causes a flow of electrons.In a fuel cell the fuel goes into one compartment where there is a reaction that consumes the fuel and makes electrons. Air goes into another compartment where there's another reaction that consumes the oxygen in the air, as well as the electrons produced by the fuel electrode. That production and consumption of electrons is what drives the power circuit and produces electricity in a very efficient single step.Moving into landfillThe company has already developed many facilities which use natural gas, and is increasingly taking on larger scale projects of up to 60 MW. According to Leo, the natural gas applications are now widely understood and accepted. However, the other area in which the company is very active is the wastewater treatment market, where it has a number of projects in California which are running on biogas produced by the anaerobic digestion of municipal wastewater.But anaerobic digesters are not the only source of biogas that the company has had its eye on, and for some time has been contemplating the prospect of developing a landfill gas project."Landfill gas can be a little trickier than municipal wastewater gas because it can be a little more variable. Gas production from a landfill typically has a finite life so you have to predict what it's going to look like over time. There's also some contaminants that are a little unique," explains Leo."So while we've focused on municipal wastewater applications over the years, we've kept our eye on landfills and every so often a landfill opportunity would pop up," he continues.To that end, back in February this year the company signed a contract to demonstrate a 300 kW tri-generation stationary fuel cell plant at a landfill near Vancouver, Canada. The project will utilise landfill gas as the fuel source and generate electricity for export to the grid, heat for use by Village Farms' nearby hydroponic greenhouse facility and hydrogen for vehicle fuelling or industrial applications.Once operational the facility is expected to produce around 135 kg of hydrogen per day - enough to fuel around 30 cars or five buses under normal usage.Landfill gas clean upThanks to some of the unique impurities that Leo says are found in landfill gas, prior to use in the fuel cell it needs to be cleaned. The company responsible for performing the gas clean-up is FuelCell Energy's partner and prime contractor for the project, Vancouver based Quadrogen Power Systems, which builds and installs biogas clean-up solutions capable of purifying renewable fuels."It's an advanced clean up system which requires a little bit of hydrogen. The fact that we're making hydrogen allows this type of technology to be easily deployed. We like to call it hydrogen assisted gas clean-up," explains Leo."We send a very small amount of the hydrogen back, which is mixed with the landfill gas that's being cleaned up and the hydrogen reacts with the impurities and converts them to a much more simple molecule which can easily be absorbed. It's an advanced approach to cleaning up these dirty biogases that really enables us to think about looking at lower quality gas streams," he continues.The two companies have previously worked together on a wastewater biogas project for the Orange County Sanitation District in California (OCSD). That project became the first fuel cell powered, hydrogen energy station to be successfully developed at a wastewater treatment plant. Air Products and the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California Irvine also participated in the OCSD project.Quadgeneration?Not satisfied with using just three of the fuel cell's outputs, the project is going one step further and taking advantage of something which could have been considered one of its few negative environmental impacts - its CO2 emissions."This landfill project is interesting because in some respects it's a quadgeneration project. We're making electricity, heat and hydrogen, but also Village Farms are going to use the CO2 from our exhaust in their greenhouse. It's going to be blended with air and sent into the greenhouse to promote more rapid growth of the plants," says Leo.Start up and maintenanceOne of the big advantages of a fuel cell is that with no moving parts, the maintenance schedule is less demanding than for a reciprocating engine or a turbine. However, high temperature fuel cells cannot simply be turned on and off at the drop of a hat."Because we run at 1000°F (538°C) we have to heat our cells up to that temperature, so when we start the fuel cell up it takes a few days to get up to operating temperature. But once it's got there it pretty much stays there until you need to cool it down to replace the key cell components in about five years," explains Leo.2.8 MW system FuelCell EnergyA 2.8 MW system that FuelCell Energy installed at a wastewater treatement plant Chino, California"There's no routine maintenance that requires it to be cooled down. If we need to stop making electricity, say if there's a problem with the grid, we just put it into hot stand-by and keep it going with a little bit of fuel," he adds.The units are expected to see around 95% uptime. Typically uptime will be in the high 90s during the regular generation years, and drop to the low 90s in the year that the restack maintenance is performed. When the stacks are replaced, the company takes the old modules back to its factory and opens them up to remove the old cells, which are recycled by a smelting plant back into stainless steel.Permits and financeThe project has been financially backed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which is providing a repayable contribution through the government of Canada's Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program. This aims to help the Canadian agricultural sector adapt and remain competitive. In British Columbia, this program is delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation.An additional significant contribution from the Canadian government has come from its National Research Council. Other project partners include Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), and BC Bioenergy Network.With regard to permitting a fuel cell project, Leo says that there are some specific regulations for safety, which are very similar to the same types of regulations for other equipment. Additionally, when the company delivers a fuel cell it has a certification stamp on it which demonstrates that it meets certain equipment safety standards."The only real difference is that in a lot of locations, and more and more as people come to understand the fuel cell benefits, a lot of the permitting activities are waived, like air permitting activities and so forth. In Connecticut and California air permitting are waived because it's just understood that fuel cells are very very low emission devices," comments Leo."In the State of California, when we come out with a new product we get that product tested by a third party who certifies us for the State of California that we meet very very low emission levels," he adds.Windows of opportunityThanks to its ability to use biogas in fuel cells, the company's technology has caught the eye of Microsoft - a major consumer of energy at its data centres. According to Leo, when the software giant happened to be installing one such data centre in the Cheyenne, Wyoming area, which happened to be in close proximity to a wastewater treatment plant, it got in touch to explore the possibilities of fuel cell generation."They kind of put two and two together and said why don't we do a 'kick the tyre' project at the wastewater treatment plant and we can see how your fuel cell runs on anaerobic digester gas, and we can see how your fuel cell powers our data centre," says Leo.Microsoft's evaluation process starts with a sub megawatt system, so it's installing a mini data centre at the wastewater treatment plant which will consume around 200 kW to pilot the technology. The fuel cell itself will be a 300 kW unit with the remaining 100 kW of capacity being fed to the wastewater plant. The demonstration project should be up and running later this year.ConclusionsAccording to a recent report on the global market for fuel cells, the stationary fuel cell prime power market is experiencing rapid growth. The research evaluated 17 of the leading players in the market, and ranked FuelCell Energy top for both execution and strategy.Having taken a closer look at this particular project, with its clever siting which allows it to make full use of not only its primary output of electricity, but also the by-products of heat and CO2 - all while exporting hydrogen for other uses - that assessment would seem plausible.For years fuel cells have dangled the carrot of low emission power generation. Now, with the industry as a whole developing a wide variety of innovative projects, soon the time may finally be here when the technology delivers and takes us to the promised land of low emission, renewable energy.Ben Messenger is Managing Editor of WMW Magazine LessSort: Newest | Oldest | Most RepliedCollapse all repliesdag_in_va • 29 minutes ago
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Distributed Generation Grabs Power From Centralized Utilities
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Like a lot of industrial sectors, American utilities are in the midst of re-thinking of their business model. Building centralized generation and then selling as many electrons as possible is now getting challenged by those who produce their own power, which enables them to “disconnect” from the grid.
A local microgrid in Sendai, Japan
A local microgrid in Sendai, Japan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The inherent conflicts are now surfacing because the utilities are still responsible for maintaining the wires and for supplying electricity when customers need it. As such, those entities using “distributed generation” that is based close to where the power is consumed are trying to work out a cost sharing arrangement with utilities. For example, rooftop solar panels may provide more than enough electricity for homeowners, who may then sell their excess back to the utility. Or, the sun may quit shining and homeowners would have to buy utility-produced power.
America's Energy Appetite Necessitates Widening Its Transmission Belt
Ken SilversteinKen Silverstein
Contributor
Enter another way of looking at things: Chip Bottone, chief executive of FuelCell Energy FCEL +0.88% in Danbury, Conn, explained to this reporter that utilities should embrace on site generation as the wave of the future. He points to Germany’s E.ON , which has created a separate distributed generation unit. How would that work?
In the case of FuelCell Energy, it segments the electricity load and then distributes that energy to where it is needed. Its fuel cells, which are a form of distributed generation, have an electrical efficiency rate around 47 percent, which is the amount of energy produced per unit of input. That rises to 80 percent if the heat is captured and re-used in some other capacity.
Consider: FuelCell Energy sold a 14.9 megawatt fuel cell to Dominion Resources D -0.81% last December. Connecticut Light & Power, whose parent is Northeast Utilities NU -1.36%, is buying the electricity under a 15-year energy purchase agreement. It’s all part of Connecticut’s renewable power generation goals. The fuel cell power plants will convert hydrogen from natural gas. Because the fuel is not combusted, it releases almost no harmful emissions during the process.
“Electricity efficiency is what drives the economics,” says Bottone. “And the ability to add heat creates additional value. Utilities need distributed generation and they must have a discussion as to how best to plan for it. They can’t be the victim. If there is a significant amount of wind and solar energy coming onto the grid that creates intermittency concerns, utilities must deal with this variability and ensure reliability. Fuel cells can solve these balancing and operational issues because they relieve power companies from having to put power on the grid.”
Right now, federal and state incentives are encouraging the escalated use of green energy. At the federal level, developers of fuel cells receive a credit of $3,000 per kilowatt generated or 30 percent of the capital cost, whichever is less. It is scheduled to expire at the end of 2016. Meantime, more than half of the states have some variation of renewable portfolio standards.
Some critical issues must be resolved: If the incentives and cost reductions cause more people to go off the grid, then the price of maintaining the distribution network falls on fewer people. Likewise, the utilities and the customers using on site generation must determine how they will allocate costs and configure prices. The states are devising so-called “net-metering” laws to work this out.
Distributed generation may reduce the need for an expanded distribution system. Minimizing those outlays would more than compensate utilities for lost electricity sales, say proponents of the technology.
However, the Edison Electric Institute says that even if customers generate their own juice and sell any excess electricity to the utility, power companies must maintain the network that makes those transactions possible — a $25 billion annual outlay. Meantime, if intermittency issues prevent self-sufficiency, then utilities are still required to provide the back-up power, all of which cost money.
The institute penned an analysis that says a rapid escalation of transformative technologies could “threaten the centralized utility model.” Fewer connected customers lead to higher costs for the vast majority who will fully utilize utility services as well as less revenues and greater borrowing costs, which enable both the expansion and improvement of the infrastructure.
“The threat to the centralized utility service model is likely to come from the new technologies or customer behavioral changes that reduce load,” says the institute’s study. “Any recovery paradigms that force cost of service to be spread over fewer units of sales … enhance the ongoing competitive threat of disruptive alternatives … Customers are not precluded from leaving the system entirely if a more cost competitive alternative is available.”
On site power generation will gradually gain marketshare, necessitating that the current utility model make adaptations. Financial considerations are one issue. Operational matters are another. In the final analysis, though, reliability standards must keep pace with green energy advances, meaning that the two business structures must be reconciled.
Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein
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NortheasternEE NortheasternEE 16 hours ago
The key phrase is “disconnect” from the grid. I assume that the reason the word is in quotes is because what is disconnected is the cost of grid upkeep, and not a physical disconnect. This gives those who produce their own power a free ride on the grid.
Since we all know that there is no such thing as a free ride in the real world, the net result will be a huge increase in the cost of electricity because the power that is produced locally by renewable mandates has no value on the grid.
Those producing their own power while still physically connected to the grid are robbing power from the rest of us.
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Alan Johnson Alan Johnson 16 hours ago
This is a one-sided and misleading article. It would have you think that power companies are about to go down the toilet and THAT is far from the truth. In the upper plains states there is only 1 area in which distributed generation is very common and THAT is because they are forced to use distributed generation. That is the oil boom area of N. Dak and there you will find lots of building and installations using their own distributed generation because the power companies in the area can’t begin to build new power lines fast enough to handle all the applications for power they have even though they are using 100′s of workers from power line contractors in addition to their own employees. As soon as a power line is built the distributed generation is shut down as the electricity coming over the power lines is far cheaper than what it costs to generate their own with distributed generation.
On the net-metering issue, as it stands in it’s most common form net-metering is great for the person who can afford to put up wind generators or solar arrays but it also hurts every one of that persons neighbors who can’t afford it. That is because a power company has to make X number of dollars to pay for their operating and maintainence expenses. When distributed generation goes in along with net-metering that person stops paying their fair share of what it costs to maintain the power line that still has to be connected to where they live and dumps all those maintainence costs onto their neighbors without distributed generation. There are more fair ways of selling excess generation from distributed generation back to the power company other than net-metering.
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Fake Fakefake Fake Fakefake 16 hours ago
“There are more fair ways of selling excess generation from distributed generation back to the power company other than net-metering.”
Yes, but those require the producers to adhere to environmental regulations and pay taxes on earnings, which solar proponents absolutely hate (since their systems would not be up to code and never be able to pay themselves off)
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large bunny large bunny 14 hours ago
Decide on a fair price per KWH that the power company will pay for power they are forced to buy…..perhaps a percentage of whatever they charge that will cover all their distribution costs.
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Fake Fakefake Fake Fakefake 16 hours ago
The author made many mistakes in the article as a whole, but here’s a few : ” The fuel cell power plants will convert hydrogen from natural gas. Because the fuel is not combusted, it releases almost no harmful emissions during the process.”
1) Fuel cells from that company convert natural gas to water and CO2 using high temperature processes. A 47% efficient (base electrical efficiency) stack produces about 400kg/MWh, which is equivalent to a gas turbine running the same natural gas and efficiency rating. “ Almost no” CO2 should be “standard amount of” CO2
2) The process creates heat though the process of combining a fuel (methane) with an oxidizer (oxygen), so even without a flame this is unquestionably a combustion reaction.
3) Hydrogen conversion plants are entirely different, this company specializes in direct fuel use fuel cells.
“Distributed generation may reduce the need for an expanded distribution system. Minimizing those outlays would more than compensate utilities for lost electricity sales, say proponents of the technology.”
1) Distributed generation only reduces the need if the generator is almost 100% reliable at all times of use.
2) The proponents mentioned are SOLAR power proponents, which has far less than 100% reliability, generally far less than 20%. That means the company must have enough power to offset the distributed losses at the tune of 100% of capacity.
3) The cost of a thermal power plant to offset poorly managed distributed systems is in the millions or even tens of millions. As base load plants can’t be used when considering distributed systems, the new plants must all be peaking energy type plants, which are even more expensive.
4) Plant costs aside, the network isn’t set up for distributed energy. For that to work, upgrades would need to be made, at the tune of over a trillion dollars in new technologies and management.
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James Wilson James Wilson 15 hours ago
Itemized billing shows we are charged a Meter Fee and a Account Fee just to have the Power Companys Equipment and an Account in their Computer. We are billed $22.50 each month if we don’t use any electric at all.
The Water Company bill $7.50 a month for the meter.
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buckbonzai8 buckbonzai8 15 hours ago
I do not know about the rest of the country, but in NorCal there is a seperate line item for power line maintenance and access fees on your monthly statement that pays for the powerline maintenance.
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Sam Hall Sam Hall 13 hours ago
Distributed generation only makes sense when somebody else is footing the bill. Central generation and the “grid” developed over many years because it was the best answer for cost and reliability. Now the power market has been distorted by people eager to get that “free” government money.
Here in Texas, our electric rates have about doubled because we are forced to buy wind power and the grid reliability has gone down.
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Gordon Ross Gordon Ross 12 hours ago
NortheasterEE -
The sky is NOT falling, although anytime big business sees anything that isn’t within their profit model, they call it out. The trucking industry, the airline industry – all scream the sky is falling when regulators try to keep them in check. More BS from business.
The simple solution to a net metering scheme and any maintenance payback is NOT raising everyone’s rates (ROBBING POWER FROM US? THE SKY IS FALLING), but to apportion costs of line maintenance to the net meters. Simple solution. They sell back to the grid, but they still use the services when they aren’t selling back – so, come up with an apportioned amount that allows them to dip in and out of the grid and still pay their apportioned share of costs. Simple solution to this ridiculous notion of ROBBING THE GRID. Come on man, get real.
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Larry Foard Larry Foard 10 hours ago
Fuel cells still require natural gas to run, better than a coal plant, but not a long term solution. We need to start looking at utilities as facilities to move and store power, rather than primarily produce it.
Utility scale batteries, fly wheels, reverse-able hydro, pressurized air storage, etc.
Solar is becoming amazingly cheap, easily competitive with the fuel cell prices quoted here and that is before paying for natural gas to power them. Solar with storage is a solution good for the next billion years. Cheap natural gas will likely not even last a decade.
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Fake Fakefake Fake Fakefake 46 minutes ago
“Utility scale batteries, fly wheels, reverse-able hydro, pressurized air storage, etc.”
Item by item:
1) Utility grade batteries require massive amounts of lead and acid. Waste disposal becomes an ecological nightmare.
2) Flywheels have been proposed for a century now, and there has yet to be a company with the right breakthroughs. Self discharge is too large, and wear is incredibly fast with current designs.
3) Pumped hydro is feasible only with nuclear due to very high energy losses involved in pumping. For a solar system to work with pumped hydro, you would have to have about two-three days worth of capacity in the hydro station, in addition to 3-4 times the capacity just to provide excess energy for pumping during solar peak.
4) Compressed air is basically pumped hydro (and all it’s issues) with the added danger of massive quantities of air pumped into very high pressure containers. The risks of explosion far outweigh any benefits.
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Stan Thompson Stan Thompson 7 hours ago
“Because the fuel is not combusted, it releases almost no harmful emissions during the process.” Where does the carbon from CH4 go after the H is stripped off?
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Industrial fuel cell use is viable for industrial electricity and steam production, nearly eliminating nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). Growth potential is larger than expected, according to a Control Engineering interview. Variable frequency drives are helping improve energy efficiency of fuel cell plants.
Sidney Hill
08/20/2013
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A steady source: FuelCell Energy finds its new VFD solution remarkably reliable—enabling its plants to supply continuous power with minimal downtime. Courtesy: Rockwell AutomationFuelCell Energy Inc. is among the early leaders in the promising new energy generation sector of fuel cells. The Danbury, Conn.-based company manufactures, installs, operates, and services stationary fuel cell power plants. To date, FuelCell Energy plants have generated more than 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity, equivalent to powering more than 135,000 average-size U.S. homes for one year.
Control Engineering and Plant Engineering contributing content specialist Sidney Hill recently conducted an email interview with Michael Lisowski, FuelCell Energy"s vice president of supply chain.
The interview covered the overall potential of fuel cell technology as a mainstream source of power, particularly in the industrial sector; FuelCell Energy"s use of Rockwell Automation variable frequency drives in its power plant design; and related subjects.
CE and PE: Briefly describe the advantages of fuel-cell power plants as compared with traditional energy-generation facilities. Specifically, I"d like to know how fuel cell plants improve your customers" ability to save money on energy costs while also helping protect the environment.
Michael Lisowski is vice president of supply chain for FuelCell Energy, a company that manufactures, installs, operates, and services stationary fuel cell power plants that have generated enough power for more than 135,000 average-size U.S. homes for one
Lisowski: Fuel cell power plants generate power and heat in a highly efficient and environmentally friendly manner at or near the point of use. This distributed power generation enhances power reliability and energy security as reliance on the electric transmission and distribution grid is reduced or even eliminated.
Fuel cell installations are economical as customers benefit from the high electrical efficiency that reduces fuel costs as well as combined heat and power (CHP) capabilities. CHP applications generate both electricity and heat from the same unit of fuel. The high-quality heat can be used for facility heating, heating water, making steam, or for absorption chilling.
Ultra-clean and efficient fuel cells support sustainability goals due to the virtual absence of pollutants from the fuel cell power generation process. Fuel cells generate power using an electrochemical process, and since there is no combustion, the fuel cell power generation process almost completely eliminates the emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) that produces smog or particulate matter (PM10) that can contribute to asthma.
Implementing distributed generation that reduces reliance on the electric grid improves power reliability and enhances energy security. Permitting, siting, and maintaining the electrical transmission grid can be costly, and expanding the electric grid in populated areas can be challenging. On-site customers and electric utilities can minimize or avoid these issues by utilizing distributed fuel cell power generation.
CE and PE: How many plants do you currently have operating around the globe, and how much energy are those plants producing?
Lisowski: We have installations and orders from nine countries on three continents. Our installed based totals more than 80 fuel cell power plants operating at more than 50 sites. Since the commercialization of our technology, our power plants have generated more than 1.6 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of ultra-clean power, which is adequate to power approximately 145,000 average size U.S. homes for one year.
CE and PE: What is the current growth rate of the fuel cell market? Do you expect fuel cell plants to become mainstream sources of energy for industrial users? If so, what sort of timetable are we looking at for reaching that point?
Lisowski: There is growing recognition that ultra-clean and efficient fuel cell power plants address many of the power generation challenges facing the globe today, including the need for highly efficient continuous power that is generated in an environmentally friendly manner and that can be located in populated areas.
Our megawatt-class power plants are scalable and can meet power generation needs for on-site customers with our standard 1.4 MW or 2.8 MW power plants at industrial, commercial, and government applications or multi-megawatt fuel cell parks to support the electric grid. We are currently building a 14.9 MW fuel cell park in Connecticut with the power being sold to an electric utility, and our South Korean partner is currently building a 59 MW fuel cell park in South Korea to support the electric grid.
Due to the virtual lack of pollutants, quiet and vibration-free operating profile, and relatively modest space requirements, our power plants are easy to site in populated areas. Continuous baseload power that is environmentally friendly and easy to site is a benefit for both on-site customers as well as electric utilities looking to incrementally add power generation throughout their service network.
We estimate the market for clean distributed baseload generation in excess of $12 billion in the developed markets where we operate and the market is growing. We have seen an estimate by an independent research firm that is about 40% higher than our estimate.
CE and PE: The project with Rockwell Automation involved developing a better way to convert dc power to ac power. How does that differ from your previous power conversion solution?
Lisowski: As FuelCell Energy grows and evolves, we felt that Rockwell offered the best total solutions package for our needs and those of our customers today and in the future. Commitment to the product line, technology and product attributes, global presence, and extensive service network are all important factors for FuelCell Energy to partner with Rockwell.
Power Flow: This is the one-line diagram for FuelCell Energy"s 1.5 MW power plant. Courtesy: Rockwell Automation
We have been using these standard variable frequency drives for many years. As our power plants evolved and reached a stable design configuration and our installed base grew, it was time for both companies to jointly develop a power conversion system design. The solution is the culmination of diverse experience of both companies working in somewhat different industries, coming together with the common goal to release the best product possible. The dc to ac power conversion system used to convert fuel cell power is built around a standard Rockwell variable frequency drive. This is surrounded by additional support components that improve the overall robustness and enable it to interact with the electrical utility grid and provide high-quality ac power within the various international, national, and local guidelines. Liquid-cooled drives with exceptional performance, efficiency, and reliability are now the core of the power conversion solution for FuelCell Energy power plants. Our customers benefit from a high-quality and reliable product that is supported by extensive resources, with a high level of support and commitment, depth of knowledge, and an overall level of expertise. For example, FuelCell Energy is growing in Europe and Rockwell assisted with the development of our first CE compliant inverter for the European marketplace, and we expect their strong European presence will be beneficial as we grow in Europe.
CE and PE: After resolving your power conversion issue, were there other benefits, such as helping to reduce your engineering or production costs or product time to market? Do you have any related metrics?
Lisowski: FuelCell Energy had been in continual development of new production-level fuel cell designs for more than 15 years. There were countless lessons learned from early designs and many improvements from one design to the next.
With each redesign we also scaled-up our core product to produce greater electrical output. This resulted in a requirement for a new power conversion system design on a yearly basis for several years. Each subsequent design led to new challenges, expanding our base of experience.
By taking every lesson learned and beginning with a blank sheet of paper, we set off to create a design to be our standard. Rockwell assembled a team with engineering, production, testing, and support, resulting in streamlined design and reduced parts count by a substantial margin.
The size of the power conversion unit was reduced to give us a very high power density and decrease the overall plant size. The liquid cooling increased efficiency and reduced noise.
The final design"s scalable and modular architecture allowed us to use a single production design building block to power two models of fuel cell power plant and be built into plants from 1 MW up to multi- megawatts with the same hardware. This reduces the cost to our customers without sacrificing performance or reliability.
This is an online extra to a recent CFE Media supplement, Industrial Energy Management. Read more about from the supplement and, specifically, about fuel cells in "Driving a new generation of power plants," linked below.
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