Fuel Cells

Yes, maybe.

There's only about 642 factors to consider, none of which you have shared.

Have you spoken to fuel cell makers and sellers?

What have you done in your quest to move your emerging country ahead, so far?

I see a Bloom box in your near future

If you have not seen Ballards' fuel cell systems, look them up. It is interesting to watch as they have been working on these for some time and are beginning to produce some sizable units now. 0 emissions and runs on Hydrogen.

It is still a risky business and heavily subsidized.

Personally I think more conventional sources are more reliable and secure.

When the solution has been determined, many of the Channel Islands , the Isle of Wight, the Isle_of_Man and many Scottish islands including the Hebrides, Orkneys and the Shetlands would benefit from the wisdom accreted. There is a real opportunity here.

No.

The short answer here is no this is not a cost effective method source of grid scale energy.

As pointed out by others on this board fuel cells are still in their infancy development wise. If they were implemented now there could be a serious amount of cost going forward as they mature to a viable product. Also as pointed out by others fuel cells are not a primary source of energy, they need another fuel type to keep them operating ie hydrogen, aluminum, Zinc, etc... as there are many different types.

Even using fuel cells as a back up energy storage at the grid scale level would not be cost effective. There are other solutions out there that are far cheaper per kWhr and more scalable to grid level than fuel cells. Although many of these systems are in their infancy as well some have been around for years such as pumped hydro. The quantity, size, weight, and cost of the fuel cells to get to the MW grid range are just not feasible at this time.

After losing electricity for a week due to Super Storm Sandy I've been looking toward obtaining a 2 to 5 KW Fuel Cell powered by natural gas since that fuel source is becoming less costly and generally is unaffected during storm outages. The Japanese have been working toward 1 KW to 2 KW Residential units for electricity and hot water generation even more so now with the reduction of their nuclear capacity.

I want to use as a co-gen for hot water using that for heating by adding a coil to my ducting and my hot water heater already has a separate coil which can be used to heat the water in the tank. I'm hoping to find an absorption unit, maybe Lithium Bromide, for cooling. Either that or size it sufficiently to handle the A/C electric which would be the major load beside the electric oven. I'm hoping to get my local natural gas utility interested since they love people who use gas year round and not just in the winter.

There are now a number of companies working toward residential fuel cells. Ceramic Fuel Cells a.k.a. BlueGen from Australia is installing in England and Europe, Panasonic, Matsushita in Japan, Clear Edge in USA, Ballard from Canada. Clear Edge has a standard 5 KW unit. I may even be able to run a pool heater, just need to get a pool or maybe a hot tub would be better. Probably I could sell my excess power to the electric utility. Total efficiencies of a combined co-gen unit is much higher than the utilities work at, 75-80% vs. 35-40%, with less distribution losses since excess power would be used locally.

An emerging nation has no business getting into a risky high tech venture like fuel cells. The infrastructure is too expensive. The million and one other things have to be in place first, everything from cnc machineing on to a mature chemical industry. Even nations which have all of that find that the technology is unproven, untested, and unreliable.

Bad idea mate. Work on biodiesel....get better results and better returns.

A diesel where I would be installing it is not feasible. Am in NJ, USA. Most residential use Fuel cells are designed for 5 year run before major repairs. Would install in large attic in conjunction with water heater and furnace located on same floor in close proximity in order to utilize hot water cogeneration.

The OP was about emerging nations. If you wish to utilize fuel cells in New Jersey, that is a different thing.

Now why would fuel cells not be feasable in New Jersey? I mean, they are not feasable anywhere, at least not without subsidies, but why specifically New Jersey?

On my seventh birthday, there was an article in Macleans magazine about a young Canadian who won a science fair by doing research on what was then an old idea...the hydrogen fuel cell. Its been fifty years since then. Why have we not seen them used in every application under the sun? Been a long time.

Ten years ago, I bought stock in Ballard's company. Hey, we got a bus running! It replaced one of the three hundred and fifty busses in Vancover. Only seventeen thousand to go....

Is this a good thing for an emerging country? Hell, it doesn't seem like a good thing for Vancover. OR New Jersey. Why would, or why DID you think it would?

Best thing we ever did with Ballard was a study to justify hydro rebates on energy reduction in their plant. (More gov funding basically).

Fascinating place - but will it ever be viable?

Ten years of new concepts and development of new methods like PEM seem to be making fuel cells more practical and economical. Add to that the CHP aspect and elimination of electrical transmission losses and fuel cells with overall efficiencies of 85 to 90% along with the reduction of natural gas prices here in NJ and you're talking competitive prices especially when there is the possibility of subsidy from either a gas utility or the government for cleaner air generation of power.

See: http://www.clearedgepower.com/residential/clearedge5-home-fuel-cell

and http://www.gizmag.com/ene-farm-home-fuel-cell-panasonic/25856/

When I ran a foundry and called up a natural gas supplier about buying direct he told me that my use was border line. When I told him that I used the gas year round for processing he said he'd be right over. They love it when you can used natural gas year round and not just in the winter for heating purposes.

Likely no, however pollution issues and site requirements may make alternatives to fuel cells too expensive or difficult, in which case possibly yes.

What's the country, environment, generation and load distribution, etc?

Can you provide more information.