Industrial, utility applications for fuel cell technology grow

[jpak]

http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage6756.html

With rising and unpredictable global facility operating costs due in part to fluctuating energy prices and environmental improvement expenditures, industrial and institutional facilities are looking for power generation options to mitigate these issues. Development of fuel cell technology is answering the call, providing users with an efficient, reliable, low-cost, low-emission and 24/7 base-load-generation option. One of the companies that has led commercial development of this technology is FuelCell Energy Incorporated (Danbury, Conn.).

Through the development of a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) for commercial application in 2001, FuelCell Energy placed itself at the forefront of the fuel cell industry. Since being founded in 1969, FuelCell Energy has invested more than $530 million in fuel cell research and development. FuelCell Energy owns and operates a manufacturing plant in Torrington, Conn., with a capacity of 50-megawatts of fuels cells per year. The Danbury facility is also the hub for the company’s GTAC (Global Technical Assistance Center) monitoring system, which remotely monitors and operates 61 commercial fuel cell units in service all over the world, dispatching onsite technical support when needed. All of FuelCell Energy’s fuel cell power plants are unmanned.

The stand-alone fuel cell units range in size from 250 kilowatts to 2.4 megawatts and can be used in a multiple unit configuration to produce up 30 megawatts in generation capacity. The high-temperature MCFC technology has the ability to remain at thermal temperature even when preventive maintenance is being performed. This means that the unit does not have to go offline during most maintenance work, as is the case with traditional fossil fuel boiler and turbine maintenance work. The versatility of this technology has entered it into a billion dollar market.

“Once you get up to a 30-megawatt (MW) plant size, you are selling to large industrials and the utilities. This is a market that, until now, fuel cells were unable to penetrate. We are very optimistic of our growth and role in the industrial and utilities application market,” stated Andy Skok, executive director of strategic marketing for FuelCell Energy. “We will just have to see how well we compete against other technologies in the market since we are the new person on the block, as far as this market goes.”

<more>

[Warpy]

1. When they start using PVCs to power electrolysis

they'll have something.

Fuel cells are much better for large scale applications because they run most efficiently when they run hot, too hot for transportation vehicles.

[Warpy]

2. Dupe, DU hiccup

.