Homing in on hydrogen

Scottish test for fuel cell micro-CHP Sensitive to the significance of rising home energy costs, a Scottish housing association is helping to pioneer a low-carbon solution based on fuel cell power. One of its houses, complete with its so-called Home Energy Centre, is now embarking on a 12-month trial of this combined heat and power (CHP) system. Fuel cell generators for the home have been in the offing for a little while, but this is the first such domestic micro-CHP unit to go into use in the UK. It promises to supply all of the heat and 75% of the electricity needed year-round for a four-bedroom house on a new development in Eyemouth, owned by Berwickshire Housing Association. The trial, part of a larger Europe-wide field test of the technology, is being run by a consortium led by Aberdeen-based fuel cell systems integrator siGEN. Dave McGrath, siGEN’s managing director, stresses the importance of the UK “establishing the necessary skills and service base for these new technologies as they become more widely available”. The fuel cell and hydrogen technologies sector is estimated to be worth $46 billion by the year 2011. The Home Energy Centre, however, was actually developed in Germany, at the Hamburg-based company European Fuel Cells, which is part of heating specialists Baxi Group. Baxi describes it as ideal for domestic properties, producing 1.5kW of electricity and 18kW thermal output. The fuel cells it uses are the low-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane type, using hydrogen (in this case extracted from methane by a natural gas reformer) to react with oxygen from the air to create the electricity and heat. - Roger East

21 September 2005

Roger East