Abstract
This white paper details the benefits of fuel cell use in stationary power applications and Intelligent Energy’s evaporatively cooled architecture in particular. It highlights the potential thermal benefits offered by utilising the exhaust heat in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems.
Hydrogen fuel cells
Hydrogen fuel cells provide zero carbon emissions power at point of use. They can be used as a power source alternative to the traditional combustion engine or battery technologies for a range of applications including automotive, aerospace, stationary power, rail, marine and materials handling. There are various fuel cell technologies that are used across multiple market sectors and applications due to their performance characteristics, whether that be driven by mass, operating temperature, power density or fuel flexibility requirements.
Hydrogen fuel cells for stationary power applications
For stationary power applications, fuel cells not only provide reliable, clean power, but they can also remove the reliance on the existing power grid and therefore can be used as a sustainable microgrid case in many applications. The high-power density and scalability of the technology enables users to reach megawatt scale without the space constraints of other alternatives.
Microgrids are energy independent systems that can be configured from one or more types of distributed energy. It is often common to find these microgrid systems in combination with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, coupled with an appropriate energy storage technology e.g. batteries or hydrogen or both, thus generating a sustainable, green hub of power for users within a defined radius.
As the microgrids operate independently from the grid, they support both remote use cases and applications that require constant power with no risk of intermittency (i.e. high availability). They can also provide benefits of both boosting and balancing the supply of grid network power