Fuel cell applications in energy generation (was: New members, please introduce!)

[Manu Sharma]

Hi Amit,

Thanks for the follow up reply on fuel cell research institutes in India. I understand that fuel cells are highly suitable for energy generation by reforming natural gas to produce Hydrogen while taking Oxygen from the air. Apparently through this process they produce 50% more electricity compared to a gas turbine using the same amount of natural gas. 

I don't know the nature of your research in fuel cells but could you substantiate the above and would you be aware of any such commercial installations in India? There are several in Europe including some that use biogas instead of natural gas, which isn't much different in its composition. 

Woking, UK, for example, even has CHP units that involve fuel cells where the excess heat is used for cooling through absorption process taking overall efficiency of the process extremely high.

I see tremendous potential for such fuel cell based units in large building complexes in Indian metros for back up power generation. Such units typically come in sizes of 200 to 250 kW range and above - perfect for the application. 

What's your opinion regarding the above.

Thanks,

Manu

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 2:20 PM, amit beriya <beriy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Manu,

Thanks for your appreciation of my profile and also for Renault-Nissan's electric vehicles plans. Answers to some of your questions/ comments is mentioned below.

 

Bio-diesel is one of the areas in which IIT Kharagpur has shown good activity. Bio-technology and agricultural and food engineering are the two departments which are working in this area. Biotechnology department of IIT Kharagpur has also made collaboration with UC Berkeley in this field. 

 

In fuel cells area, there are certain national labs like CFCT, CECRI, NCL and DRDO. All of these work on fuel cell research and development and have build some systems also. NCL has done some good work in the catalyst area. Other than these, IISc and IITs also work on fuel cell. But, I guess the research done here in fuel cell area is way behind the world standards. 

 

Selco is one of the high scorers because it has done a really great work by actually reaching the masses and developing confidence for solar energy in them. Selco has entered the market in a time when rural people where not at all willing to accept solar solutions because of failure of some previous goverments projects on solar lighting.

 

Dlight has developed lantern for Rs. 500, but for this the quality is compromised. The battery life is not satisfactory. The illuminated area by the lantern is very less. Moreover, I have come across some compplaints regarding thier after sales service. Solar lighting is realtively new thing for the masses and if proper after sales service is not provided, the rural people or anyone for that matter will lose the confidence on the technology itself.  My comments are meant only as constructive criticism. Dlight has ofcourse reached people more than any other company has, for which they should be applauded.

 

Thanks and Regards,

Amit

[amit beriya]

Hi Manu,

There are different types of fuel cell requiring different gas/liquid as fuel. In automobile sector or in small stationary application PEM fuel cell is the one showing promising results. Hydrogen is the fuel for a PEM fuel cell, which can be supplied directly from hydrogen storage devices like  compressed gas, metal hydride etc or can be reformed from some other fossil fuel onsite. One such system can reform natural gas to provide hydrogen. There are systems which can use LPG, biogas, diesel etc and reform them into hydrogen. Electrical efficiency of a fuel cell is generally around 40% and for a CHP/CCP application the efficiency is 80%. 

I too opine that fuel cell has a great potential in stationary power application in India due to huge power shortage. Infact commercialization of fuel cell in stationary power application will be much earlier than automobile industry worldwide.

The initial capital investment for a fuel cell system is very high as compared to diesel genset or battery inverter. Though the opex savings can compensate for this extra capex over the life time, fuel availability is an issue. Once the natural gas infrastructure is developed as planned by government, I expect growth in fuel cell units installed. 

Last year few LPG based PEM fuel cell systems were installed by Tata Tele Service for telecom towers in collaboration with Plug Power and had a plan to increase the number to 300, but now the deal has been called off due to policy changes in Plug power. Even Acme telepower have installed few direct hydrogen based systems in collaboration with Ballard and Idatech. They have plans to install 10,000 such based on natural gas reformers, but nothing has started as of now. These systems are of 3kW - 5kW power capacity generally.

For the capacity range you are taking about (200kW), not PEM fuel cell but Solid Oxide fuel cell is suitable. South Korea is setting up a plant for SOFC, but in India much activity is not there at the commercial level. 

Final comment would be: Yes fuel cell is very promising in India scenario but after a few years when gas infrastructure is ready and fuel cell capex comes down a little more.

Regards,

Amit

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Amit Beriya
Renault-Nissan Technology and Business Centre India
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BTech. in Energy Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
email: beriy...@gmail.com

[amit beriya]

If someone else has know how in this field please do share your thoughts and opinion.

[Vishwas Gokhale]

Yes fuel cell do produce electricity at much more efficiency than gas based gensets. However fuel cells work at very high temperature. The reliability of fuel cells is yet to be proven over a long period of time. Gensets coupled with heat recovery systems are also highly efficient and are proven in practice. The natural gas is to be used for power generation and fertilizer production. And it will be wise to be used that way.  Fuel cell is a  futuristic system of power generation. Those fuel cells will be based on hydrogen and it will be produced from  water.  Both  hydrogen and oxygen will be produced from water   using solar energy and it will be reconverted to water after power generation.  That is meant for space applications. Hunting of water in outer space therefore is very crucial.  Spending of  our resources on such futuristic dreams therefore is wasteful. Whenever when technology develops we should just copy the same, the  way Eklavya stole it from Dronacharya.

 

Vishwas Gokhale  

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[Manu Sharma]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 8:50 PM, amit beriya <beriy...@gmail.com> wrote:

There are different types of fuel cell requiring different gas/liquid as fuel. In automobile sector or in small stationary application PEM fuel cell is the one showing promising results. 

[...] 

I too opine that fuel cell has a great potential in stationary power application in India due to huge power shortage. Infact commercialization of fuel cell in stationary power application will be much earlier than automobile industry worldwide.

[...] 

For the capacity range you are taking about (200kW), not PEM fuel cell but Solid Oxide fuel cell is suitable. South Korea is setting up a plant for SOFC, but in India much activity is not there at the commercial level. 

Hi Amit,

Thanks for your detailed response and sorry for the delay in replying. Good to know you agree that energy generation fuel cell applications would precede transport application. 

I did a bit of looking up on the fuel cell technology employed at Woking, UK (in the late 90's they installed a 200 kW CHP system). Not much detail on their site but they mention it's sourced from UTC Power. 

UTC Power is a US based firm that has a 400kW stationary fuel cell product based on Phosphoric Acid fuel cells (PAFCs) technology. PAFC is apparently a mature technology with products being sold with certification and warranty. 

They claim their products achieve 90% total efficiency if waste heat is utilised for co-generation, as Woking has done. 

In India, I notice some reports of BHEL having indigenously developed a 50kW PAFC but didn't find much info on installations. Are there any PAFC installations in India that you are aware of? 

And would you happen to have an idea of cost differential between natural gas based turbine system and PAFCs at that power point (400-500 kW)?

Thanks also for mentioning fuel cell developments in the telecom sector.

Note to other readers: As Amit mentioned, please do share your knowledge and experience in this area.

Thanks,

Manu

[Manu Sharma]

On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Vishwas Gokhale <vishwasg...@gmail.com> wrote:

The natural gas is to be used for power generation and fertilizer production. And it will be wise to be used that way.  Fuel cell is a  futuristic system of power generation. [...] Spending of  our resources on such futuristic dreams therefore is wasteful.

As Amit said, there are different fuel cell technologies for different applications. Therefore it would not be prudent to club them all together. Woking, a town of over 60,000 people had installed a stationary fuel cell system several years ago.

A single company in US, UTC Power has more than 270 stationary fuel installations in 19 countries across six continents with over 9 million operating hours of experience. 

Finally, natural gas is not a limitation as such systems can be run on biogas just as well which is indistinguishable from natural gas once scrubbed.

Thanks,

Manu

[Vishwas Gokhale]

 We are working on biogas systems not only in India but also abroad almost for a lifetime . Biogas is no cheaper than  natural gas.  In fact what we manually  produce  is always more expensive than what is available in nature and can be plundered. What is available in nature should belong to the entire humanity instead of the oil companies which are bribing the governments across the world. In fact it is cheaper to fight wars for natural gas than produce biogas with manual effort.  We should not cheat younger generations in believing such things.

 

Vishwas Gokhale      

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[Manu Sharma]

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:50 AM, Vishwas Gokhale <vishwasg...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Biogas is no cheaper than  natural gas. 

That might be true or not. I do not know. We do not have large-scale biogas systems based on food waste in India. At least none that I'm aware of. If a member is aware of any, please let us know.

But even if it's true that biogas costs as much as natural gas, it's good to remind ourselves that we're talking purely in monetary terms. 

In terms of carbon cost of both fuels, biogas is almost free while natural gas is expensive as it's use causes greenhouse gas emissions. Biogas, on the other hand as we know is carbon neutral because  the feedstock would generate emissions anyway if left to rot or moved to landfill.

 

it is cheaper to fight wars for natural gas than produce biogas with manual effort. 

I'm not sure I understand this statement.

Thanks,

Manu