Environment

Fuel cells are an electrochemical technology that are reaching the market in transportation and are a growing market in stationary power systems for backup power, primary power, combined heat and power, and materials handling equipment. The first part of this entry describes the manufacturing cost reductions from PEM and SOFC technologies that are estimated from higher-volume fuel cell manufacturing from economies of scale and improvements in overall yield. Fuel cells combined heat and power systems have the capability to displace grid electricity and on-site fuel combustion. In general...

Hydrogen is a widely produced and used commodity, now being used as an energy carrier for stationary power and transportation markets. Tens of millions of tons of hydrogen are produced each year globally, mostly for large-scale industrial uses. As awareness grows for the need to reduce greenhouse gases and enable new energy paradigms, hydrogen is being seen as playing a critical role as shown in Fig. 1 [1]. Hydrogen provides chemical storage of electrical energy and can be efficiently converted to electricity on demand for distributed applications, thus enabling the global electrification...

A total cost of ownership model (TCO) is described for emerging applications in stationary fuel cell systems. Solid oxide fuel cell systems (SOFC) for use in combined heat and power (CHP) and poweronly applications from 1 to 250 kilowatts-electric (kWe1) are considered. The total cost of ownership framework expands the direct manufacturing cost modeling framework of other studies to include operational costs and life-cycle impact assessment of possible ancillary financial benefits during operation and at end-of-life. These include credits for reduced emissions of global warming gases such...

This “Assessment of Combined Heat and Power Premium Power Applications in California analyzes the current economic and environmental performance of combined heat and power (CHP) systems in power interruption intolerant commercial facilities. Through a series of three case studies, key trade-offs are analyzed with regard to the provision of black-out ridethrough capability with the CHP systems and the resutling ability to avoid the need for at least some diesel backup generator capacity located at the case study sites. Each of the selected sites currently have a CHP or combined heating,...