PGE begins researching fuel cell costs and uses
Natasha Nowakowski Special To The Business Journal
(From the September 20, 2002 print edition)
Last Monday, Portland General Electric welcomed a possible future energy source to Portland.
The utility received its first fuel cell, a green power generation device, at its Earth Advantage National Center as part of its efforts to explore and test new, environmentally clean technology for the future.
"We want to offer our customers the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies available," said Mark Fryburg, PGE's corporate communications manager. "This project will give PGE and its customers valuable experience and insight with a new technology that may be very useful in the future."
PGE's fuel cell project was spearheaded by its Distributed Resources division, which explores emerging green technology such as bio-bags and generating methane gas from manure. The division partnered with PGE's Earth Advantage National Center, its state-of-the-art demonstration facility for the latest energy saving technologies, to house and demonstrate the generator.
While fuel cells are still pre-commercial, PGE hopes to learn how its cell works, explore potential problems and gain hands-on experience using fuel cells. In the process, the utility hopes to attract interest from architects, builders and engineers coming into the center. There already is some local interest in fuel cells, said Richard Manning, the center's architectural design consultant. The Harkin House in Washington County, a juvenile facility, has expressed interest in purchasing a fuel cell.
Although there are already some inquiries, Fryburg is cautious about the near-term outlook for fuel cells. "In the near future, we expect the only purchases will be the early adopters who want to learn about new technology, or special applications, such as operations in remote areas that can't be easily served by power lines, such as campgrounds."
Fuel cells' promise stems from the fact it's like a battery that uses hydrogen to generate electricity, heat and water efficiently with little or no pollutants. As Fryburg explained, a reformer separates hydrogen from raw fuel such as natural gas, propane, ethanol (made of out of corn) and in PGE's case, methanol. The hydrogen then flows into the cell where a platinum catalyst separates electrons from hydrogen atoms on one side. The electrons flow through an electrical circuit and reunite with hydrogen and oxygen on the other, creating water and heat.
While a fuel cell's reformer can put out equal amounts of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour as a conventional plant, said Fryburg, it has less overall environmental impact because it has none or extremely small amounts of other chemicals associated with thermal power plants such as particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. "And of course, it doesn't have the impact on fish runs that a hydro plant does," he added.
Fryburg also pointed out fuel cells are more efficient than conventional power plants as the energy is converted to electricity at the end use point. This removes the need for building and maintaining transmission lines, which could make the cells attractive options for buildings in remote locations. As a bonus, most of the residual heat can be captured for other uses such as hot water or space heating.
But expense issues must be addressed before fuel cells will be readily available to the public. "The fuel cell industry has been saying they are five years away from the technology needed to make them commercial for the last 10 to 15 years," said Bruce Barney, project manager at PGE.
PGE's interest in fuel cells goes back several years when it lent support to the city of Portland's own $1.3 million fuel cell project with a $247,000 donation. The city implanted a large fuel cell, one that can provide electricity for use in 120 Portland homes, at the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment plant to turn methane gas, a natural by-product of the sewage treatment process, into renewable energy. To date, the project has been largely successful, reducing power bills at the treatment plant by $100,000 per year, explained Dave Tooze, energy division manager at the Office of Sustainable Development.
With the cell's success at the treatment plant, PGE "wanted to test a small scale cell, one that you would find in a home or small office." Roughly the size of a home refrigerator, PGE's new cell can produce enough power for two large homes or the lights at the 10,000-square-foot center.
PGE joined the Bonneville Power Administration's fuel cell program to purchase its green generator. While PGE would not disclose the actual price paid, a cell of its size costs approximately $40,000. In return, PGE is providing feedback from its research and testing on the cell.
When and if fuel cells become commercial, the hope for their applications go beyond generating power for sewage plants and remote buildings. "The idea is that in the future, we will not need a lot of big, central generation plants because of its pollution and long transmission lines," said PGE's Barney. "Instead, we could have distributed generation sites with fuel cells producing clean and quiet power for the neighborhoods."
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