Npw here's an interesting concept - natural gas fuelled domestic ceramic fuel cell, 2kW output. Ready for production release from the looks of it.
http://www.cfcl.com.au/BlueGen/
Anyone heard anything?
Browse Forums Eco Living 1 Dec 09, 2009 10:53 pm Npw here's an interesting concept - natural gas fuelled domestic ceramic fuel cell, 2kW output. Ready for production release from the looks of it. http://www.cfcl.com.au/BlueGen/ Anyone heard anything? Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 2Dec 12, 2009 12:12 am Japan has been using these for 10 years. Quite good and a really affordable booster if your lights go out or you have PV and storage. If you have a party with PV storage you will need a geny running.. The interesting part about these things is they turn bio gas directly into energy. No turbine required so people living on farms have a chance to sell energy back into the grid, for another cash crop and all it takes is a dam with a sealed cover and plenty of bio mass. Blend stuff into a liquid and pour your money.. Landfills could also generate huge amounts of energy using these. At the end of the day, we waste so much energy and call it useless when all it takes is a cover and some rational thinking. Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 3Jan 25, 2010 11:51 pm I have read the first Bluegen has just been installed in Victoria. I think they will be popluar even if you consume more gas to create the power. Just what my new house would like, a mini power station. It can work all day/night for me. Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 4Jan 26, 2010 8:10 am Unless you have some surplus combustible gas, why would you want to buy gas and convert it to electricity? This is what power stations do and do it for less cost and more efficiently. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 5Jan 30, 2010 10:49 pm Hi thought I would chime in on this one. Its really hard to evaluate all these different renewable energy solutions to the average jo blow. You need to work out the $/kWh. This is the true comparable, How do you do this? $/kWh = (system capital cost + system running costs over the warranted lifetime of the system)/ (system annual kWh output X system warranted life) Then you can compare apples for apples. Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 6Feb 11, 2010 7:33 pm Casa2 Unless you have some surplus combustible gas, why would you want to buy gas and convert it to electricity? This is what power stations do and do it for less cost and more efficiently. Well that's actually just the point - this unit is supposed to be more efficient than commercial power stations. Looking at the the distributor's site (http://www.neco.com.au), the figures are as follows: Commercial brown coal produces at about 25% efficiency, most energy is lost as heat in the burning process The fuel cell works at 60% electrical efficiency, and 25% thermal efficiency if you use the heat for hot water - total 85% efficiency Uses 95% less water than in than brown coal generators Forecast to produce electricity at 11.1 c/kWh, as opposed to Victorian price of 18c/kWh 75% less CO2 for the electricity produced So let's do the maths - I've seen the price of $9000 bandied around for the electricty only unit - let's say $10,000 for water and electricity. Peak output is 2kW, but peak efficiency is at 1.5kW, so let's say an average output of 1.5kWh. 24*1.5*365=13,140kWh per year. Take away household consumption of 5000kWh = 8140 kWh. SA feed in tariff at the moment is $0.44 + 0.06 from the retailer, so your income (!!CASH!! ) from the unit is $4070 It runs on gas, using 12.6MJ/hour, 12.6*24*365=110,376 MJ/year at about 1.5c/MJ=$1,655/year for your gas. Net profit is about $2,400/year, not counting what you would have spent on hot water and electricity beforehand - say $1-2000 easy. If that maths is right (someone check it, I'm pretty carp at that sort of stuff), that's payoff in 4 years in outright cash terms, 2-3 years in net terms. Now that's not to say this thing is all it's cracked up to be....it might be another SunCube....but it sure looks like it beats the pants off solar anyday.... Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 7Mar 12, 2010 11:45 pm Todays Age http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fuel- ... -q48i.html Quote: BlueGen creates electricity and heat by passing natural gas over ceramic fuel cells. According to Ceramic Fuel Cells managing director Brendan Dow it is 85 per cent efficient and cuts the average home's annual carbon dioxide emissions by 18 tonnes. ''At the moment they are about $25,000 to $30,000 installed but I predict within the next three to four years they should be $10,000,'' Dow says. ''But this is misleading, really. They will be like a mobile phone, where you don't pay for the handset, you just pay for the contract. Here, you won't pay for the BlueGen unit, just for the gas.'' It is a big call. Just 30 BlueGen units have been sold to date - and just four in Australia. The majority of sales have been in Germany, which is better prepared for decentralised electricity generation after years of the government generously promoting rooftop solar photovoltaic panels. But Ceramic Fuel Cells is now approaching an important turning point. It expects safety approval by a Netherlands rating agency in the next three weeks, making large-scale installation much easier. It has signed deals with a handful of European companies, opened a manufacturing plant near Dusseldorf and employs 80 people in Melbourne. Premier John Brumby opened the Noble Park plant last May, and has been vocally supportive. Dow spruiks a bright future: "We will be cash-flow positive by next year. We're only planning on selling a couple of hundred this year, but the plan is to sell up to a couple of thousand next year." The question Ceramic Fuel Cells poses for policy makers is: does an innovative low-emissions technology that emits less carbon dioxide than brown coal deserve public help to become cost-effective? In the US, fuel cells are the flavour of the month thanks to some heavyweight support for a silicon fuel cell known as the "Bloom Box". Launched last month by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it boasts Google as its first customer and has been backed by eBay, Wal-Mart and Coc-Cola. The rhetoric at the US launch was expansive. Schwarzenegger said the fuel cell technology was "shaping the future of energy". For the moment, Bloom and BlueGen are operating on a different scale - one fridge-sized Bloom Box unit generates enough power to run a street block and costs up to $US800,000 ($A874,300). Ceramic Fuel Cells sees a bright future in Europe, but is less certain about a cautious Australian market still hooked on coal. It is lobbying hard to get the Victorian government to add it to a list of technologies that utilities are obligated to buy electricity from. "Not having that is why we've backed off in Australia," Dow says. "That's the single biggest hurdle to commercialisation in Australia." Dow is hopeful of a decision by mid-year. Victorian Energy Minister Peter Batchelor told The Age only that the government was keen to hear new ideas and met regularly with companies developing low-emission technologies. In Canberra, Dow has been pushing for the federal government to create an extra energy target - on top of its schemes for large and small-scale renewable energy - for low-emissions generation. It won't happen. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong declined to comment; Dow says the government was "yet to see that renewables are not the only answer to a low-emissions future". The opposition has been more encouraging, flagging the prospect of supporting the technology in its recent "direct action" climate policy. But it is also blocking the introduction of a carbon price through an emissions trading scheme, which may be the best way to help BlueGen compete. Among environment and clean energy campaigners, BlueGen has measured support. Russell Marsh, policy director with the renewable-focused Clean Energy Council, says policymakers had not yet caught up with low-emissions technologies pitched at a household level. He believes they deserve support through, at least, a carbon price. But he also offers a note of caution. ''The jury is still out on exactly what fuel cells can deliver,'' he says. ''I think we need to be careful about how much these things, like any new technology, are promoted as the answer.'' Re: Domestic Fuel Cell 9May 28, 2010 11:44 pm IIRC the heat is 30% of output assuming you are using the full 2000 watts. Most of the time you will be using less than 1000 watts so you get around 300 watts of heating. Underfloor it would be enough to take the chill off assuming your home is reasonably insulated. If the percent value reduces with reduced consumption as a portion of energy then the numbers will vary. Its worth it in cold climates. Underfloor heating can work effectively on half the energy or less so if you are watching TV and have a computer on there will be a gain in warmth and comfort in the house. |