Can you power a home using hydrogen? Science says there are almost no downsides to using hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles, homes and businesses.
Unfortunately, hydrogen fights an uphill battle against the inertia of oil and the familiarity of solar. There’s a lot to know about fuel cell-powered homes and much untapped potential.
What Do You Need for a Hydrogen-Powered Home?
Most providers of hydrogen-based energy products favor commercial installations that require hundreds or thousands of fuel cells. Finding a supplier to outfit one house may be difficult, but the demand is growing. Hydrogen fuel cells are not cost-competitive with most other energy sources, but experts believe this will change with time and more investments.
Here are some key elements in a hydrogen fuel cell system:
Secure a Source
Fuel cells eventually deplete their hydrogen and must be recharged. This can happen in two ways:
- The homeowner has hydrogen delivered regularly, in cylinders, like propane
- The homeowner makes their own hydrogen on-site using solar electrolysis or by reforming captured hydrocarbons from natural gas or propane energy systems
The solar method is the best option for individuals wishing to live off the grid.
Know How to Store It
Storing hydrogen is a challenge. Part of the reason it hasn’t caught on widely is that it has a lower energy density by volume than other fuels.
Deciding how much hydrogen to store depends on how much power a house requires. The average home may need around 25,000 liters of hydrogen for 16 hours of energy.
Work continues to improve hydrogen storage efficiency. Adding metal hydrides is pricey but can substantially expand the homeowner’s available hydrogen supply.
Understand How Fuel Cells Work
The most common type of fuel cell is polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel. It’s a thin material that selectively allows ions to travel between the anode and cathode.
There are two platinum catalysts on either side of this membrane. The catalyst on the anode side facilitates the splitting of hydrogen into electrons and protons, and the cathode-side catalyst creates water vapor as it reacts with the protons. The freed electrons travel through an external circuit to make electricity.
Connecting the system to a home requires an inverter. Houses connected to a local utility need a grid-tie inverter instead of a standard one.
The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy offers additional resources so homeowners can fully appreciate how these systems work.
Who’s Building Hydrogen-Powered Homes?
A product from Australia’s Lavo Green Energy Storage designed for solar-power systems uses excess electricity and a connection to the home’s water main to continuously generate and store usable hydrogen. The company claims it can hold the equivalent of three times the energy — only in the form of hydrogen. The system requires little more than routine maintenance, including knowing when the plumbing system needs attention since the home’s utility connection is the source of hydrogen.
Multiple homeowners claim the title of “world’s first” self-sufficient hydrogen-powered home.
One example in Pennington, New Jersey, demonstrates the practicality of off-grid hydrogen power. The system has a 40 kW solar-panel array, a 20 kW backup power system and a hydrogen fuel cell with an electrolyzer. The home is fully compliant with local building codes and is entirely self-sufficient.
Another home built in 2015 in Gothenburg, Sweden, also claims the title of “world’s first.” The home’s solar panels provide most of the usable energy during high-demand periods and power its hydrogen fuel cell and electrolyzer when electricity demands are lower. The house can sustain itself all year.
The rest of the world is enthusiastically exploring hydrogen applications as well:
- U.K.: The United Kingdom has several trial programs on uninhabited properties, including near the Cumbria Royal Air Force base. One goal is to pursue transitional technologies involving natural gas and hydrogen mixtures.
- U.S.: Texas’s H2@Scale program seeks to explore the costs and implications of building an entire local hydrogen economy to compete with oil and gas economies.
- Japan: Toyota leads a project called the “Woven City.” It’s a 175-acre “city of the future” powered entirely by hydrogen. The final population is estimated to settle at around 2,000 individuals.
Hydrogen-Powered Homes of the Future
There’s a lot of interest in expanding the practicality and affordability of hydrogen as a residential fuel source. It’s an abundant element that can be generated from several other resources. It gives off nothing more than water vapor and warm air when used as a power source and is the epitome of clean and efficient energy for the built environment.
It will be several years before residential hydrogen fuel cell systems become as widely available as solar panels. The two work best together, which means solar companies should expand their technologies and infrastructures to support hydrogen creation and distribution — ideally sooner rather than later.
Jane Marsh, Contributor
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Fuel Cells Works, its directors, partners, staff, contributors, or suppliers. Any content provided by our contributors or authors are of their own opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.
Read the most up to date Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Industry news at FuelCellsWorks
