Applications
Why use fuel cells
Fuel cells have been around for a long time, but really started to capture the public’s attention in the 1990s. That’s when some of the big names – Plug Power, Ballard – really started to take off. Even so there was still a lot of hard scientific work and technical advances needed to bring the cost down, and improve reliability. Many more companies joined the effort and in the last 10-15 years we have seen workable fuel cell products arriving in the marketplace. These include forklifts, cars and trucks, UAVs, and backup power systems.
Customers will consider fuel cells if they work as well or better than what’s currently available (typically batteries or combustion engines). They may hesitate if hydrogen fuel isn’t available, or if the cost is too high. At Protonas we believe that we can bring very cost effective fuel cell systems into commercialization. We’ll focus on applications where hydrogen fuel sourcing isn’t a big problem, so that we will be able to have the right product, with the right performance, at the right price to compete with legacy solutions.
Fuel cell backup power systems usually have some bottled hydrogen and a fuel cell which provide power during grid failure. In North America that’s infrequent, which means refilling the hydrogen isn’t a major problem. Still, for short duration power outages of up to a few hours, batteries are the winners. It’s only when the power outage is much longer – say 8 to 72 hours – that batteries don’t make sense. Inside the 8-72 hour outage window, the primary competition for fuel cells is diesel or propane generators. In some locations it is getting harder to site a combustion generator (such as…California), so that’s leaving operators with fewer solutions. At the moment Plug Power is the main company offering fuel cell backup power solutions in North America, having absorbed ReliOn and outlasting Altergy Systems. They’ve steadily sold a good number of 200-2,500 watt systems over the last 15 years.