Tom:
According to a press release on Plug Power, they will be using natural gas in their home fuel cell cogeneration system. As far as far as using gasoline in fuel cells, gasoline is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons which makes it difficult to reform. Therefore it would require a complex and expensive reformer. By the way, ERC's molten carbonate fuel cell doesn't require an external reformer.
Natural gas is much simpler(primarily methane, some propane) than gasoline. This allows natural gas to be used in a PEM fuel cell using a simpler and less expensive reformer.
A website for a press release on Plug Power is the following:
detroitedison.com
David Benson asked me about Plug Power about a week ago.
The following is a copy of the E-mail that I sent him.
David:
I think that there is potentially a very strong long-term market
for home fuel cell cogneration units. I expect that large power plants
will largely disappear and will be replaced by much smaller units. There will be a mix from home-size units to neighborhood-sized units. In the past economies of scale favored larger and larger central station units. Economies of of scale are now shifting towards the economy of mass production of many smaller units.
In the near term the most cost-effective units are combined-cycle gas turbines ranging in size from 100 kw to 1 mw. For remote power in which utility power is not available or the cost of extending transmission lines is high, small cogeneration units should be cost-effective in the near future.
For remote power I think that there is a market starting at $4000 per kw for 1 to 5 kw units. Most likely these units would run on propane.
Having the support of a company as big as Detroit Edison is a plus for Plug Power. Even though I think there is a large potential market, that doesn't, of course, guarantee the success of any particular company. Even though I own stock in Ballard I don't have high expectations for their attempt to market 250 kw units. I think that PEM fuel cells will only be successful in vehicles and in small generating units(under 100 kw).
One group that is looking into this is the Small-Scall Fuel Cell
Commercialization Group(http://www.oge.com/sfccg/sfccg.htm).
One small company that is building home cogeneration systems is:
Intelligen Energy Systems,
intelligenenergy.com
The following is taken from Intelligen's web site:
INTELLIGEN - THE VISION
We are Intelligen Energy Systems, and we have a vision. This is not a vision for tomorrow, or for next month, or next year. This is a vision for the next century. In this vision, large centralized power plants no longer exist. Instead, electricity is supplied by a network of millions of small generators installed in homes and businesses all over the country. These systems exist in enormous diversity as well as profusion - there are solar systems, fuel cell systems, wind systems, small turbines, low head power systems - and maybe even cold fusion or some other technology unknown in the 20th century. In addition, there are millions of small battery and flywheel storage systems adapted from electric car technology which store power off-peak and sell it back in peak hours.
All of these systems are integrated with the Internet. Spot market
prices are transmitted continuously over the Internet, causing
individual generators to come on or off line to match the demand. Since they are so small, each system can respond almost instantly to a change in market price, and can switch on or off dozens of times a day. And, of course, the same Internet link can record the real-time value of the generation for monthly settlement.
Let me know if you find out any more about plug power and home
cogeneration.
Michael |
