Mike: For there to be any market for stationary power fuel cells for non-utility applications they all, regardless of type, have to be black boxes that operate without any trained staff. The user need not know or care what is in them or what temperature they are operating at internally, the only question is, can they do the job: provide reliable electric power in an economic fashion.
Higher temperature fuel cells are designed run unattended, so PEM has no edge there. The question is, what do they cost to buy? What do they cost to run? Unless Ballard or someone else makes a major breakthrough in how one reforms natural gas, PEM and phosphoric acid fuel cells will require an external reformer that is expensive to make and siphons off a lot of energy from the fc to run. Higher temperature fuel cells don't require that.
So given the choice between two black boxes, one that is expensive and has low efficiency, and one that is cheaper and has a higher efficiency, which do you think will win? Of course, all this depends on the various companies meeting current targets for cost and reliability, and that may not happen.
Co-gen, as you point out, has a price in complexity and capital expense, and it may be of little interest to hospitals, shopping centers and hotels. But the higher temperature fuel cells blow away PEM cells efficiency even without that. Ballard, I believe, has mentioned 40% as its ultimate target, whereas ERC's higher temperature fc's already do around 50% without any cogeneration, and still have room for improvement.
For those customers who want it, higher temperature fuel cells have the possibility of substantial co-gen, using the heat generated in the fc itself. I think a Ballard fc can extract a tiny bit more, using the heat from the natural gas that has to be burned to get the temperature hot enough for the reformer to work, but that is pretty marginal. And hey, if you want to generate electricity by burning natural gas, just do it--who needs a fc as a middle man? |
