Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

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exogenesis
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Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by exogenesis » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 02:11

I was sort of casually looking at alternatives to electricity purchase/generation/cost,
& wishing for better efficiency / cost / home-system (/ possibly national system).

Certainly this has been 'looked into' by various governments/companies/individuals,
but doesn't seem to have got very far...at least in the individual consumer sector.

I was wondering why,
what with in-vogue adversity to carbon-footprint, & with improving technology + government 'green energy incentives' etc,
why home generation of electricity & heat isn't strongly going down the methane/solar->hydrogen->fuel-cell->home-power/heating
route very much.

Here in the UK methane gas is much cheaper than electricity (per KWh),
even with the very recent & extreme hike in prices here (due to supply problems?),
but I understand in the USA methane is a lot cheaper (due to fracking?).
Either way making your own home's electricity/heat needs seems such a obvious choice.
Especially since you can sell any excess electricity to the national grid.

To me it seems a no-brainer for individual home owners (that can afford the installation cost)
to use systems like these, since it it much cheaper in the long-run, and far 'greener'.
Although I guess a 'maintainable system' could be seen as more effort than 'just plugging in to the grid'.

I can't see why home-systems haven't already become widely available, at a reasonable (installation) cost,
although I see Panasonic had an 'ill-fated' go about 10 yrs ago.
https://news.panasonic.com/global/topics/2011/4127.html
Presumably there are some sort of commercial reasons why this becomes unattractive to sell to individual consumers
(rather than larger site-installations) ?

Apparently there are a few methodologies, best friendly quick explanation (although more vehicle oriented) is :
https://people.bath.ac.uk/msi20/powertt ... lcells.pdf

Couple of method of getting the hydrogen from methane, not sure which suits home usage better
(terms like 'steam methane reformation' or 'autothermal reforming')
https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/stories ... s-hydrogen
(& at least this shows a 'desire' to go this way UK),
Or less efficient/CO2 producing, unless using 'green energy', = just straight electrolysis of water to get the hydrogen.


Anyway, seems to me that (if you've got the installation space / up-front costs) these systems could
1 reduce costs markedly (medium/long term).
2 be much greener - even if you use methane (rather than electrolysis), this creates 30-50% less C than just burning it.
3 allow independence, i.e. be less prone to national grid problems.

Disclaimer : I might not have fully understood some terms / technology, but think I've got the principle themes...

Any feelings or information about this ?

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Re: Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by Vertigo 7 » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 03:17

at least here in the states, a lot of the conservative run state governments are pro public utility monopolies which penalize you for cutting energy usage costs and/or allow HoAs to have bylaws banning the use of solar, and other renewable power, on your own properties.

For example, Southern Power Company, who provides more than 90% of the electricity for Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, will tack on a recovery charge for customers that have switched to LEDs and other energy efficient things. They try to justify it by saying they designed their power grid to support incandescent lighting and it somehow costs more for them to supply less power for LEDs. :roll: They also have another fee they charge if you do, somehow, switch to solar and sell power back to the utility company, and while you can still potentially make more than they're charging, it ends up being much more difficult to recoup the cost of changing over, often to the point of losing more than what you would otherwise be charged to use the utility's power.

The bottom line is this is all political bs, and what's good for us is not something GoP run governments will take up the fight for in the interests of consumer protection, much less anything related to any kind of green energy. The utility companies will do everything they can to resist us seeing a reduction of our power bills. So we're at their mercy, which is not forthcoming, voluntarily.
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red assassin
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Re: Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by red assassin » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 10:22

Couple of big reasons:

1) Hydrogen as a fuel is just really annoying. It's hard to store, hard to transport, hard to produce.
2) What are you actually gaining by introducing the hydrogen step into this process, or by moving it to consumer properties? Methane + energy -> hydrogen + CO2 -> transport hydrogen to end consumer -> use hydrogen in fuel cell. (Or possibly electricity+water to produce hydrogen.) Every translation step adds additional inefficiencies. Making hydrogen, turning it back into electricity, and doing stuff with that is less efficient than just using the methane to produce power/heat directly. And any system where you have to ship things to end users uses more energy for all that transport and is less efficient. Solar and batteries work okay installed on people's properties, but you don't have to regularly supply them with anything and it's still pushing into individuals something central government should be doing.
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exogenesis
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Re: Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by exogenesis » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 12:54

Pretty sure in the UK there'd be a public/political outrage if
energy suppliers tried surcharging for you being an efficient energy user.
Sounds like your power industry has too much direct political influence.


Not sure, but I think the point of home installations that generate hydrogen from methane,
is that you don't have to store (much) or be supplied with the hydrogen,
although national supply is a future possibility.

Think I should separate consumer & industrial generation a bit more for this topic.

Really, I was interested in these consumer units that work on supplied methane,
which noiselessly create hydrogen in a reduced carbon output method (c.f. burning the methane).
Then they make the heat & electicity, pollution-free & quietly.
I'd thought it was a 'flow-process', i.e. not needing to store large amounts of hydrogen.
And due to methane cheapness would save much money (c.f. buying national-grid electricity).

I guess if national versions of this were ever done seriously,
they could reduce pollution even more (centralised carbon scrubbers?),
but that's probably far future.

As I see it the reason for having the (consumer) multiple conversion step process is
= quiet, reduced pollution, lower bills, & no extra transport of 'intermediates'.
c.f. burning methane (combustion engine) for 'direct' electricity,
= noisy, higher pollution

Presumably there are vastly common situations where homes have methane-fuelled generators
(also other fuels say oil or petrol/gasoline or even wood?), but they must be noisly & smelly.

Solar is good & getting better (materials technology),
if you have the right space or orientation of roofing,
but even with (reducing) UK government incentives/subsidies, it's not really so common
& it's a bit 'weak' & sporadic (power output), at least here in the UK.

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Re: Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by Alan Phipps » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 14:05

Many of the regional councils in the UK are managing collective domestic solar panel schemes.

This is not a government grant or subsidy scheme, but rather that a regional council competes amongst the interested solar panel installers to get the most cost-effective and reliable supply contract for all participating new installations in their region. The promise to the successful supplier of an almost guaranteed high take-up and demand means that they can apply economies of scale and proximity to their bid costings and so save each participating end-user quite a bit of money against 'normal' one-off panel quotes (and the suppliers are competing with others which keeps tender costs down too).

The only downside is that if the take-up by the region's public is very high and/or exceeds anticipated demand, then individuals could be waiting quite a while for their survey and panel installation.
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red assassin
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Re: Why aren't we all using fuel-cells at home to generate our own power & heating needs ?

Post by red assassin » Sun, 26. Sep 21, 19:28

No form of methane derived hydrogen production is ever going to be a long-term solution for energy production, because it's still using fossil fuels so it's still CO2 intensive. In the short term, methane might be better than other fossil fuels, whether you burn it directly or turn it into hydrogen. However, you're never going to beat the efficiency of a large scale production plant with a home-sized installation, especially once you've factored in purchase, installation and maintenance costs for whatever fuel cell device you're trying to set up. Economies of scale are not in your favour.

If you want practical home-sized installations, look at solar, grid storage (whether a separate battery or a V2G electric car), and heat pumps. Better still, pressure your regional and national governments to support community energy schemes.
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