Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

come on now, you have to see the humor in that. Run forever, until it runs out of fuel? Hey I got some advertising to. I have a battery that never runs out of charge, as long as the electricity is still connected to it.
That has to be a joke, right? All its saying is you better keep the natural gas flowing to it.
Now that I understand this is about the humor - the funny - I can respond properly. Here's an example of what's truly meant about how fuel cells are becoming too big to ignore;
Here's one of the latest & greatest home use fuel cells -

Output of a whopping 750 watts - & the price tag of about $2,000. All I need is maybe 50 of those bad boys, and $100,000 - and we will be ready to rock n roll. So what if it takes up ⅓ of our house. So what if it runs on natural gas - I'm free of fossil fuels because it turn gases into electricity

I'll say one thing - that's definitely a fuel cell that's too big to ignore.
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Yet, it wasn't provided. Ugh.

Back then (late summer 2013) was a time of desperation for Volt hopefuls. Sales had not grown to expectations by year-end 2012. That meant the next 12 months were critical... and the first 9 had already went poorly. The attacks on Prius PHV had growth to an amazing level. Remember the effort to convince people that the entire plug-in capacity was only 6 miles? It was intense and an obvious sign things wouldn't get any better for Volt. The next generation was still 2 years away. Ford's Energi models were seeing growth. Leaf was gaining appeal, despite "range anxiety" and heat-degradation issues. Tesla was causing quite a stir.

GM remained stubborn, insistent upon not offering an EV, any type of hybrid, or even a more affordable version of Volt. Inventory was piling up. The price got dropped by $5,000. Sales didn't increase though.

The "who" question was getting asked more and more. With BMW's i3 beginning to draw interest, there was good reason to wonder who Volt would appeal to. After all, early-adopter purchases were complete. Meanwhile, people were learning to tolerate the gas prices around $3.35 per gallon as the norm.

Remember what came just a month later? The disastrous second-generation BAS called "eAssist" was canceled and the Cadillac version of Volt was announced with a price of $75,995. It was a mess. GM was betting the farm on Volt success. You can imagine the type of pressure that put on supporters.

 

I think you don't understand what those are about. With millions of these FC units one creates a virtual CHP-powerplant. Normal gas combined cycle plant has an effieciency of 60-65 % at best, but those things make some electricity and all the rest goes to heat your home or hot water. No more waste.

And they will get smaller and cheaper.

 

Matt, what if you don't need the heat when you need the electricity? What if you don't have the space. These great things cost about as much per kwh as solar in the US, but solar doesn't need the natural gas, so you could use the natural gas in your traditonal heater and hot water heater and stove, when you actually want to use it.

In Japan it makes more sense. They are zoned against building ccgt quickly put can make up for lost nuclear with these smaller fuel cells. The US does not have any such problem. You will see data centers and hospitals pay because they need emergency back up, and lot sof them in big businesses in californa because they are subsidized, and pg&e and sce are expensive.

 

There are companies that install water jackets on the backside of solar panels that capture heat for water & air as well. The PV's excess/surplus electricity is capturable in high efficiency battery backups (like the tesla power wall) which are smaller by multiple times compared to these low electric,output / high cost fossil fuel burners. Additionally, last time I was in Tokyo it was summer time. That waste heat off the fossil fuel cell burner is not going to do anybody any good. But the battery captured solar energy will - even at night. It can dehumidify & cool down the place in summer. Plus water jackets mounted on pv backsides keep the solar panels cooler, which increases their efficiency, as PV panels are more efficient operating in cooler temperatures.
Consider how huge those monsterous fossil fuel cell devices are. Now imagine how much space that'd be, times millions? I'd try to do the math, but that's a lot of zeros behind a lot of acres.

 

You guys live in much warmer climate than I do, in here people have special fire proof rooms for heating system in their houses. And some are burning fossil fuels anyway with oil or gas boilers, solar panels are no good in winter as there's little or no sunshine at all. That's why it's easy to see potential in that japanese monster There should be much more power in it though, maybe 2-4 kW in electricity and 3-6 kW heat.

 

First thing to do is to hook up natural gas to the homes if you are going to install one of these fuel cells. That gets rid of the problem of the oil boiler. I don't really see a problem with the size of the unit if you need it and have a free standing home you probably can do it, it just takes up space, which may or may not be valuable to you. The problem is cost.

In Japan they are in a nasty situation, with very little electricity production, I definitely see why they would rather have individuals purchase instead of relying on utilities. I see you are in Finland, which is in a much better situation with US type electric rates, not the high costs of Japan.

Now I see most of the finish fossil fuel is combined heat and power (CHP) with district heating from the utilities, and building heating for the industrial. There are a lot of imports from Russia and Sweden, so there is potential for distributed power. I doubt it will be as cheap electric as you are paying now. I don't know if you would use more or less natural gas than the imports. I think the Swedish imports are nuclear and hydro.

Non subsidized a gt used in cc or oc combined with heat is much less expensive to build than fuel cells, and can cycle with demand for heat and power. Efficiency should be as good or better than fuel cell chp, but minimum size is larger. Its great for district heating or a large factory that needs heat. Fuel cells can move smaller, but they are still very expensive for individual homes. They may work well for an apartment complex or condominium group.

Fuel cells, especially if they are subsidized seem great for data centers and hospitals, where you need uninterupted power.

 

Good analysis. Imports from Sweden are mainly nuclear and hydro, there's some wind power too. Russian imports are mainly nuclear and thermal.


Nordic power balance - Market and operations - Statnett


Situation is quite interesting in Finland actually, imports are artificially cheap (excess subsidised wind power) and many thermal powerplants have been forced to shutdown:


Fingrid - Electricity shortage is possible during a cold winter



Yes, it's too expensive tech right now. That 750 W system has recommended sales price of ~21 000 usd in Japan. But if they manage to triple it's capacity and cut the price well below 10 000 usd as production volumes go up it starts to make sense. Let's wait and see..