WAKEMAN, Ohio – Just a few miles from the birthplace of Thomas Alva Edison, Ohio’s first name in electricity innovation, a fuel cell is generating power inside a barn on an 7th generation family soybean farm providing another first in energy innovation for Ohio.
Members of the Ohio House of Representatives, Alternative Energy Committee, staff, representatives of the Ohio Soybean Council, The Ohio State University, Lockheed‐Martin Company and other special guests visited the demonstration to see another first in electric power innovation for Ohio.
Cleveland‐based TMI (Technology Management, Inc.), Ohio’s oldest fuel cell systems developer, is conducting a first‐in‐the‐world 30‐day demonstration of an unattended, solid‐ oxide fuel cell system running on multiple liquid biofuels. In 2007, through the support of checkoff funds from Ohio soybean farmers and research funding from the USDA, TMI became the first fuel cell company in the world to convert vegetable oil into electricity (2007) in the laboratory.
Today, funded again by the Ohio Soybean Council, TMI’s Anywhere Energy system is providing clean, renewable power inside a barn on a working farm in Wakeman, Ohio fueled by soybean oil.
“Envision an appliance, that is safe to use indoors and provides enough power 24/7 to handle the average requirements of a family home, a small farm or even a third‐world village” said Benson Lee, President of TMI. “Because it runs on most available fuels – including renewable biofuels – without requiring any fuel cleanup or pretreatment, TMI’s Anywhere Energy system can deliver clean, renewable energy anywhere, anytime.”
About TMI’s “Anywhere Energy” System
Compared to other fuel cell systems, the TMI system is designed to facilitate ease of use in the field and provide economic advantages for the end user. The simple modular 1‐kW system design can operate on a wide variety of ordinary liquid and gaseous fuels – virtually any hydrogen‐rich fuel, ranging from natural gas, diesel, kerosene, propane, military JP‐8 to renewable fuels such as ethanol, vegetable oil (e.g., from soybeans), biodiesel, anaerobic digester gas, ammonia., and even used cooking oil – at a higher efficiency (2‐3 times higher) than a comparable small diesel generator.
TMI’s clean, quiet, compact system can produce power in operating environments where there are essentially no small scale alternatives. These include using indigenous biofuels, indoor siting, meeting air and noise pollution standards and 24/7 power availability.
The key is TMI’s proprietary integrated fuel reformer and fuel cell stack which can tolerate fuel impurities such as sulfur while maintaining high fuel efficiency. In addition, TMI’s Anywhere Energy system platform can be “ganged” in multiple units to provide more power or redundancy for higher reliability.
TMI is also collaborating with The Ohio State University’s Biomass to Energy Program at the Ohio Agricultural Research & Development Center (OARDC) on another Ohio first ‐ integrating anaerobic digester biogas (from farm and food processing wastes) as fuel input for TMI’s Anywhere Energy system to produce clean, electricity and heat for on‐site use. Through the Ohio Third Frontier Program, the shared OSU/ TMI vision is to showcase at farm scale, a scalable system for converting biomass waste into clean, renewable energy, while reducing fossil fuel consumption and the size of the carbon footprint. This project bridges between Ohio’s two largest industries, supply chain manufacturing and agriculture and provides a pathway for the home and small business owner to become part of the solution, as a supplier and/or consumer of clean, renewable energy. Building on Ohio Third Frontier Program investments in both TMI and the OSU Biomass to Energy program, implementation of this vision could leapfrog Ohio to the forefront of the emerging distributed bioenergy industry.
