Neighborhood fuel cells promise clean, quiet, reliable energy -- and
security
Publication Date:28-August-2006
06:00 AM US Eastern Timezone
Source: David A. Rohy and Byron D. Sher-The Mercury News
What image does the term ``power plant'' conjure up in your mind? If
you are like most Americans, probably a large, ugly building with dark
smoke billowing out of a tall smokestack. It's definitely the last
facility you want built in your neighborhood. However, when your home
or business experiences a blackout or brownout, you are incensed. There
is a solution to increase reliability and energy efficiency, as well as
do away with the pollution of power-plant electricity generation: fuel
cells.
Surprising to most people, there is a power plant that can be located
in your neighborhood that creates no pollutants, is quiet and
relatively small. Because it is local, it is less likely to be affected
by errant cars or weather knocking down power poles causing dangerous
and expensive blackouts. The fuel cell is a new type of power plant
that accepts fuel and air and converts them into electricity and water
vapor without any combustion or combustion waste.
Today, several companies are developing fuel cells for stationary and
transportation applications. Transportation fuel cells must respond
extremely fast to driver demands for acceleration. In contrast,
commercial and residential loads are fairly uniform and can utilize
more robust technologies. The commercial and residential fuel cells
provide high energy efficiency -- efficiencies often higher than that
of large central power plants.
Most large cities depend on electricity produced at large power plants
far from the city gates, which is then transmitted to the city via
high-voltage transmission lines. In recent years this system has become
overloaded. The approval process to build more transmission lines is
painstakingly slow (often taking upward of 10 years to plan and build),
costly, and to date has a poor track record (many of the proposed lines
are never built). But, without more transmission lines, our cities will
be power constrained as our need for power grows. Fuel cells, installed
locally, present an alternative.
A neighborhood fuel cell could fit into a garage-sized building and,
because of the extremely low emissions and low noise, nobody outside
the garage would know that a power plant was operating inside. By
deploying relatively small, dependable, clean power plants throughout
the cities and neighborhoods, we can achieve higher reliability and
greater energy security. When used in this distributed manner they will
provide greatly enhanced reliability and versatility to the operators
of the electricity grid. In addition, grid operators will have less
need to build new transmission lines and substations when robust,
distributed fuel cells are in place.
Stationary fuel cells can operate 24/7 at a high efficiency and respond
quickly to fluctuations in electricity demand. They have the capability
of easily switching between a wide variety of fuels including natural
gas, hydrogen, ethanol and biodiesel fuel (automotive fuel cells
require pure hydrogen as fuel). Regardless of the fuel, the stationary
fuel cells provide safe, clean, dependable, quiet and affordable
electricity.
Almost all new large power plants are natural-gas-fueled and burn only
natural gas. If the natural gas supply is interrupted, the operators of
these plants must shut them off, leaving entire cities blacked out.
When natural gas prices soar, as they have done in recent years, your
electricity bills inflate because these large power plants cannot
switch to more economical fuels. On the other hand, a fuel cell could
continue to operate during either a supply outage or an economic crisis
by consuming other available and less expensive fuels.
Fully qualified fuel cells are commercially available and ready for
deployment. The science has been proven and costs are on a steep
downward trajectory as companies employ modern manufacturing techniques
to evaluate and lower production cost.
Because of the current need to increase fuel efficiency and to reduce
air emissions simultaneously, the power industry and its regulators
need to expand the adoption of fuel cells as a key part of the
solution. Programs such as the Self Generation Improvement Program
administered by California's Public Utilities Commission play a vital
role in ensuring a cleaner, more reliable and diverse electricity
infrastructure in California. is a former state senator who wrote
California's renewable-energy portfolio standards law, and he serves on
the advisory committee or board of several energy technology companies
and advocacy groups. They wrote this article for the Mercury News.
DAVID A. ROHY is a former vice chair of the California Energy
Commission, and serves as a consultant to energy technology companies.
BYRON D. SHER http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage5879.html
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