August 17th  2002

Cell powers up family home

Source:Toronto Star

Siegrist, chief engineer with ATSI, an engineering services company at Amherst, got the fuel cell in April, courtesy of National Fuel, a gas company with 700,000 customers in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania. 

It will be tested at his home for a year for free and then be removed for detailed analysis.

The installation is viewed as sufficient to meet all household needs for electricity and allows surplus power to flow to the area's utility grid. 

The natural gas enters the left bottom of the fuel cell, is humidified and goes into a catalytic partial oxidizer. That produces a mix of hydrogen and oxygen that passes through a fuel cell membrane stack to separate the hydrogen proton from the electron and ultimately produce electricity. 

Plug Power Inc. of Latham, N.Y., a joint venture of Detroit Edison Energy and Mechanical Technology Inc. and partner with General Electric, makes the five-kilowatt proton exchange membrane fuel cell. It hopes to have such units ready for general use in large buildings by late 2003 and in single-family homes by 2007. 

It's seen as the way of the future in terms of alternative, environmentally friendly energy systems for homes. The installation at Lewiston is the first fuel-cell system to power a single-family home in western New York and one of the first demonstrations of its kind in the U.S. 

Siegrist says that natural gas is abundant in the U.S. and much cheaper than electricity. 

He reckons he's been paying about 12.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity from his utility, Niagara Mohawk. 

"The cell has ability to run at 2.5 kilowatts, 4 kilowatts or 5 kilowatts," he says. "I have it set at 2.5 kilowatts." 

Siegrist adds: "It runs all my lighting, computers, a sump pump, the washer and a dryer but when I heat my hot tub I do have to bring in some electricity from the grid." 

His utility electricity bill from June 28 to July 31 was a paltry $ 20.02 U.S. and the daily cost for the period was 61 cents, compared with $ 2.42 for a similar period last year without the power cell. 

In fact, the per hour electricity consumption from the utility dropped dramatically from 20.1 kilowatts to just 1.3 kilowatts. 

"These power cells are getting smaller all the time and I feel they're headed for a bright future,"Siegrist says. "They take about a day to install and there's no reason why they can't go in a basement. So far this one has been very trouble free." 

Companies including Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver and Hydrogenics Corp. of Mississauga are developing similar fuel cells in Canada that operate emission-free or with minimal emissions of greenhouse gases. 

For now, however, they see more of a market in Asia and Europe where utility electricity prices are much higher than in North America. 

In the U.S., General Motors Corp. announced on July 29 that it will enter the market for backup power systems by 2004, selling stationary fuel cells to businesses that depend on a reliable energy supply. 

Gary Brandt, chief financial officer for Hydrogenics, reckons it will be at least another three years before fuel cells enter the general consumer market. 

"The residential market will be second in size to the automotive market when it develops,"Brandt adds. 

In New York, Plug Power made 131 five-kilowatt units last year. They use natural gas as fuel and they've gone mainly to utility companies and select industrial and commercial customers.The company also made a prototype 50-kilowatt unit that can run on hydrogen. 

"We can go from order placement to delivery in just 10 days for some products although we are not at this point marketing to the residential area," says Cynthia Mahoney, a company spokesperson. 

She notes that while the gas-powered unit does produce some heat and water emissions, the heat is being captured for reuse in Germany in the company's latest system. 

Power Plug says its units will eventually be widely distributed through General Electric, which has the world rights. 

National, which supplies the natural gas for the fuel cell, sees good potential for home installations in an area where existing electricity rates are among the highest in the U.S. 

In fact, government surveys show that residential rates in western New York averaged 13cents U.S. a kilowatt-hour last year, compared with 15 cents in California, which has the highest rates in the continental U.S. The U.S. average was 8 cents. West Virginia, at 6 cents, had one of the lowest rates. 

In Ontario's electricity market, deregulated since May 1, Toronto Hydro is offering homeowners a guaranteed rate of 5.79 cents Canadian per kilowatt-hour in a three-year contract. 

Julie Coppola Cox, a spokesperson for National Fuel, says the utility has previously installed gas engines, turbines and micro-turbines to generate electricity for commercial and industrial customers, including car washes, a hospital, a nursing home, a bakery and a 3,500-kilowatt unit at the General Mills plant in Buffalo. 

In some cases these ventures have produced energy cost savings of between 30 and 50 per cent, Cox says. But fuel cell technology is now emerging as an alternative that's especially good for the environment. 

She adds that by decentralizing power generation the utility grid becomes less vulnerable to outages and even terrorist attacks. 

Cox also notes that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get approval for large centralized power stations. 

Gary Davidson of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority says the Lewiston project groundbreaking. 

"It's certainly the first time in New York State that we've had a fuel cell operating to power everything in a normal lived-in home. This is pretty close to what the company wishes to sell on the open market," he says. 

Within four years Plug Power hopes to make its units an affordable option for many homes. Company officials won't say what the units cost now, only that they are constantly working to reduce costs. 

Plug Power is also collaborating with Honda on a home refuelling system that will provide heat, water and electricity to a home while supplying hydrogen fuel to a fuel cell vehicle.