Hydrogen as a Cooling Medium in a Synchronous Generator?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_Disaster

Hydrogen cooling of AC generators has been in use for years, I once worked at a site with 3* 500 MW generating units and they were cooled this way. I suppose you have to make absolutely sure no oxygen can build up inside and everything will be OK.

I assume you want to do this because hydrogen has a high specific heat... I'd bet that it is technically possible, but there are lots and lots of reasons not to. Why exactly do you want to try this over other methods of cooling? What is used now?

It would be much easier to use air and increase the flow over the stator. Increasing the humidity of the air will increase the specific heat if that is what you need.

Since you want to cool the non-moving parts, water cooling should be an easy option. That is probably the easiest, safest, and most effective option.

Unless you already have a very well controlled closed cooling system that can handle hydrogen safely (unlikely), it will be very expensive to build one.

This is actually standard practice in the power utility industry, particularly if the generator driver is a steam turbine. Higher specific heat capacity of the hydrogen means better cooling of the windings, so you can push more current without exceeding temperature limits.

This website has a pretty good expanation of the process.

Wow! There's none of these in Basildon. Thanks.

Yes, and it is also commonly used for cooling the bus-bars carrying the current from the generators to the substation outside the plant. Quite impressive to see these large rectangular structures.--JMM