Solar-Hydrogen Home Garners Wide Interest and Public Support

 

Solar-Hydrogen Home Garners Wide Interest and Public Support

Publication Date:05-Aug-2006
10:30 AM US Eastern Timezone
Source: National Hydrogen Association


New NHA members EmPower CES and the US Merchant Marine Academy's
Alternative Power Program helped renewable hydrogen take a giant leap
forward during the 2005 Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. The Solar
Decathlon is a Department of Energy competition that brings 18 college
and university teams to the National Mall in Washington DC to compete
in ten contests that measure the ability to design, build, and operate
the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered
house. Thousands of people descended on the Mall to visit the homes
during the two week competition in October of 2005.

As the Energy Team Leader for the New York Institute of Technology / US
Merchant Marine Academy 2005 Solar Decathlon Project, EmPower Chairman
& CEO David G. Schieren was responsible for project management and
developing the Solar-Hydrogen Fuel Cell power system. Lead Engineer
Greg Sachs of the US Merchant Marine Academy's Alternative Power
Program was responsible for engineering, installing and operating the
advanced hydrogen systems. NYIT/USMMA was the only team that used
cutting edge Solar-Hydrogen technology. Key system components included
a Plug Power GenCore 5 kW Fuel Cell, a Proton Energy Systems HOGEN 40RE
Electrolyzer, and 54 Sanyo HIT 200 Photovoltaics with a nameplate of
11.8 kW.

The Solar-Hydrogen House placed 5th out of 18, a very respectable first
entry. More importantly the Solar-Hydrogen Fuel Cell power system was
one of a kind and it received incredible attention both in New York and
in Washington, DC.

EmPower CES and the USMMA's Alternative Power Program will continue the
successful partnership forged during Solar Decathlon project. The
Solar-Hydrogen Home is now rebuilt at the USMMA's campus in Kings
Point, New York where it will be used for further research, development
and demonstration purposes.

To read the entire article, please click here.
http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage5765.html

 

    --Just curious: in what sense is hydrogen considered "renewable".
Honestly I don't feel like falling for the hype. I really believe that
ethanol from crops is the answer; that, and hybrid systems. Comments?

--
        "Steamboat Ed" Haas         :  Whatever happened to        
        Hacking the Trailing Edge!  :  Zig Zig Sputnick?
                          www.nmpproducts.com
                   ---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

 



It's just a storage medium -- it's renewable only if
the energy that produced it was generated renewably
(eg, solar), and even then, it's a lossy system.

 



Who supports the National Hydrogen Association?

After hearing lots of people talk about hydrogen cars and hybrids and corn at
an alternative fuels forum sponsored by a Republican congressman and seeing
the movie "Who killed the electric car," it seems to me that oil companies
badly want some kind of fuel to pump in all their gas stations, so they are
against electric cars, even though they make more sense than the alternatives,
from an engineering point of view.

Nick

 


Gee, Nick.

Have you noticed that the number and quality of service stations has greatly
diminished
over the last 30 years or so? Used to be a little gas station on every corner,
and most of
had a mechanic bay. Now they are bigger, further apart, and rarely offer any
kind of
service beyond a coin-operated compressor to inflate tires.

Big Oil doesn't make much money on the retail end. Service stations represent a
lot of
overhead.

You don't have to go imagining conspiracies, when a simple explanation will do.
That is
simply that some sort of liquid fuel in an internal combustion engine is the
cheapest and
most efficient way to get a motor vehicle down the road, and will continue to be
so for
some time. Electric propulsion shows some promise, and may already be
competitive in the
short-range niche, but we simply cannot put all our road transport energy demand
onto our
current electrical grid and expect it to function.

Gordon Richmond