Why have heat distinctions? All fuel cells produce heat. The hotter the exhaust, the more usable it is. Exhaust gas at temperatures above 500 degrees Celsius can be coupled with absorption chillers or directly for space or water heating. In addition, some commercial applications would benefit from additional heat.

What are fuel cells? They are a ‘new’ technology that has been around since 1838 – 171 years! They are similar to battery technology in that they have an anode and a cathode and produce electricity, yet dissimilar in that they use fuel. The preferred fuel is hydrogen. In the hotter fuel cells, methane is the initial source of hydrogen and the methane is reformed into hydrogen internally. Sizes range from 8 watts up to 2.8 megawatts (MW).

Implementation

Due to their high reliability, fuel cells are being used throughout the world to provide power for vital installations. They are also used beyond earth in manned space missions – to provide electric power and drinking water for the astronauts. Other installations include providing primary power supply to hospitals, data centres, prisons, the coast guard, wastewater treatment plants, hotels, and gas pipelines. The smaller PEM cells are now being used to provide primary power to buses and cars. They also work exceptionally well as replacement technology for batteries in telecommunications applications.

Research stage or commercial

Most of the above applications are commercially available and being used now throughout the world. At the larger industrial end of the market, phosphoric acid and molten carbonate fuel cells are well established with considerably more than a hundred implementations worldwide. The most successfully deployed technology is the range of molten carbonate products from FuelCell Energy (FCE). The MW class solid oxide fuel cells have not yet emerged from the R&D phase to commercial products although this is not far off. These promise higher efficiency and greater fuel adaptability.

Fuel cells in Australia

Compared with many countries, such as the USA, Europe and Japan, who have established fuel cell R&D programs and emerging industries, Australia has some catching up to do. However, Australia does have some of the leading hydrogen research scientists in the world based here. For the past three years, they have been brought together by the CSIRO in the National Hydrogen Materials Alliance. In addition, one Australian company, Ceramic Fuel Cells (CFC) is leading the world in research and commercialisation of solid oxide fuel cells for combined power and heat residential applications. Their 2 kW SOFC will provide electricity and heat for homes in Europe.

The World Hydrogen Energy Conference held in Brisbane in 2008 showed that there is a real interest in hydrogen and fuel cell technology in Australia. The National Hydrogen Technology Roadmap published by the Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism in 2008 provided a critical review of the status of technology in Australia and made some recommendations for future development and deployment. These include increasing dialogue between researchers, technology development and government agencies at both state and federal level, Follow up is now needed.

Leslie Consulting Pty Ltd is now providing a service to industry and government with scoping and feasibility studies for potential implementations of fuel cells. These include small and large applications such as:

* Utility sized power supply systems * Primary and back up power for data centres * Primary power supply for hospitals and hotels * The use of anaerobic digester systems to provide methane for large fuel cells * Wastewater treatment plants * The use of absorption chillers to utilise the heat from large fuel cells to provide space cooling * Replacement of internal combustion engines and/or turbines in remote locations * Power for gas pipeline pressurisation and let down stations * Mobile power for buses and trucks.

Summary

Many fuel cell systems are commercially available today. They offer one of the cleanest and most efficient ways of converting fuel to electricity. The larger fuel cell systems also produce very usable heat. As a distributed form of power generation, they are also the most reliable. They can be used in almost any environment with little or no effect on the surrounding area. As a way to reduce the landfill issues of lead acid batteries and the pollution and unreliability of some diesel generators, PEM fuel cells make an excellent replacement technology.

The Australian and state governments have a role in encouraging the adoption of fuel cell plants as a way of decarbonising energy supply as many other countries around the world are already doing. The Roadmap was a good initial step in this direction. It made some key recommendations for the development of a hydrogen and fuel cell industry in Australia but follow up action is now needed in the form of planning, development of policy framework, grants for technology demonstrations and the introduction of feed-in tariffs to encourage the uptake of fuel cell technology.

In response to the Hydrogen Technology Roadmap, a new Australian Association for Hydrogen Energy is being formed, and will be addressing these issues by bringing together the research community, industry and government agencies.

This article was written by Adrian Horin, Leslie Consulting, in collaboration with Dr Andrew Dicks, University of Queensland. For more information contact (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), Energy Manager, Leslie Consulting Pty Ltd.