Do You Have A Source Of Methane ?
Then Ballard May Soon Have A Fuel Cell For Your Home.
Ballard has been testing this unit in a off grid community of Neledi Trust in South Africa.
Along with their partners Anglo American Platinum they are confident in proving that their fuel cell can work economically for the people in the village.
The methane fuel for this field trial is being trucked in weekly so the village will have continuous power.
The trial utilizes Ballard’s commercially proven 5 kilowatt (kW) ElectraGen™-ME fuel cell system, integrated by Anglo American Platinum into a complete prototype off-grid solution, including a battery bank and inverter operating within a micro-grid. The system is designed to provide a total of 15 kW’s of fuel cell-generated electric power and can generate peak power of 70 kW’s with the support of batteries. This configuration will power the thirty-four (34) rural homes in the Naledi Trust community. Monthly delivery of liquid methanol fuel to an external storage tank will enable uninterrupted primary power to these homes.
The field trial is intended to validate technical and operating requirements of a home generator product for off-grid applications in South Africa. Other important factors also being assessed include the logistics of fuel delivery, rural consumer electricity usage patterns as well as ongoing product maintenance requirements.
In parallel with the 12-month field trial, ongoing development work at Ballard will continue on a new lower cost methanol fuel reformer and longer life fuel cell stack for a commercial version of the home generator, under a Product Development Agreement signed with Anglo American Platinum and announced in 2012.
To discover more about this project go to the source article
Just thinking – When will they come out with a hydrogen model that will work with wood gas?
