Natural gas fuel cells 101 fuel cells might sound futuristic but they were invented in 1932 and put to commercial use by nasa in the 1950s.
Residential natural gas fuel cells.
Home fuel cells and fuel cell technology has been a big buzz now for the last couple years with lots of talk and plans for cars that run on them and so on.
This provides a critical continuous power supply for buildings like hospitals that rely on multiple forms of backup power to ensure safe steady operation.
Improving the picture for residential fuel cells is that there is a federal tax incentive for them.
They are now most common as a power source for buildings and remote areas but continual improvements in technology are quickly bringing them into wider use.
This presents a powerful opportunity to provide reliable efficient and affordable site generated electricity without the limitations of other power production and distribution systems.
But along comes a company to my attention of late that seems to be proving that wrong.
Fuel cell systems from these manufacturers are currently being used to generate ac or dc electricity heat water or any combination of the three.
With that said i am still a fan of the residential natural gas fuel cell.
Fuel cells will continue to produce and store energy as long as they are connected to your natural gas fuel source.
But it has seemed to be very much a thing of the future and not of today in terms of consumer use of fuel cells for power generation.
The residential system will be based on watt s current imperium tm system a 1kw hybrid sofc unit converted to operate on readily available natural gas.
Affordable natural gas fuel cell power the redox cube the future of distributed generation the redox cube is a 25 kw natural gas fueled stationary fuel cell power system.
If you have access to natural gas and you do need electricity and heat in your home just about everyone then i think this is a great technology.
A home fuel cell or a residential fuel cell is an electrochemical cell used for primary or backup power generation similar to larger industrial stationary fuel cells but built at a smaller scale for residential use these fuel cells are usually based on combined heat and power chp or micro combined heat and power microchp technology generating both power and heated water or air.
By the way we work primarily with pem fuel cells so this article will mostly be addressing those.
The most efficient small scale electricity generator.
The fuel cell industry changes so frequently if there is a provider for residential fuel cells out there currently delivering actual products please leave a comment and a link or email us.
With a size of roughly one cubic meter and a weight under 450 kg the cube can be installed outdoors or indoors.