For Hydrogen, Niche Uses Are Key

May 10 (Energy Prospects)

Hidden among the larger announcements at recent national hydrogen industry meetings in Los Angeles were two smaller stories that underscore the fact that renewables and combined transportation-stationary applications carry a lot of near-term potential. For hydrogen-related energy projects, these small niche applications may prove better in the near term.

A fuel cell-powered truck that can double as an emergency or remote power source was one of the smaller applications highlighted at the 15th annual National Hydrogen Association conference. Another was a rooftop commercial building's solar photovoltaic installation coupled with an electrolyzer to support a fleet of hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine trucks.

Sacramento, Calif.-based Anuvu has developed a 1.5-kW fuel cell stack that weighs about 15 pounds as the basis for the fuel cell pickup truck that it hopes to have on the road by the fourth quarter of this year. Water-cooled and under pressure at 40 psi, the unit can produce AC and DC power. The electric hybrid vehicle conceivably can power both transportation and stationary uses.

"Your transportation fuel cell is, in fact, a mobile power source, so it does a lot of things that are very helpful as opposed to a pure stationary fuel cell, such as one out near telecommunications switches and equipment," said Craig Newhouse, Anuvu's marketing director. He acknowledged that for both applications the cost of deploying the fuel cell currently is too high, at a few thousand dollars per kilowatt. However, if the transportation use can spark a mass market, prices on fuel cell units may drop to the $150 to $200 per kW level.

Solar Integrated Technologies, based in Los Angeles, holds up the model of President John F. Kennedy's Apollo moon-landing program as what is needed to make hydrogen and renewables the nation's energy base for future economies. In the interim, SIT is combining its solar roofs for large commercial and industrial settings with hydrogen production for transportation.

SIT is linking one of its existing commercial/industrial PV roofing systems to hydrogen-producing electrolyzers at the Frito-Lay distribution center in Los Angeles. The center, in turn, will use the hydrogen to power a fleet of delivery trucks and warehouse forklifts converted to hydrogen internal combustion engines.

"There is a tremendous amount of unused real estate in the form of flat roofs that one sees from the air when landing at any urban airport in the United States," said SIT executive Dick Schoen. "Light industrial and commercial flat roofs provide the opportunity to create, harvest and use green energy at the point-of-use, to power the coming hydrogen-based economy."

Both Schoen and Anuvu's Newhouse recognize that mass transportation or stationary markets for these technologies are a "long way off." The federal Department of Energy has a 2015 target for drafting a serious plan for developing the hydrogen-based economy. In the broadest context, that is not an unreasonable amount of time, Newhouse said, but he thinks fuel cell technology will advance more rapidly than most people realize.

Both Anuvu and SIT helped initiate technology development by adapting components developed by others and eventually allowing multiple applications to converge. What will take renewable technology and hydrogen applications to the next level are the hundreds of other firms like Anuvu and SIT, which Newhouse called "a coalition of willing, smart people" committed to the convergence of various aspects of the technologies. They have already made the paradigm shift, he said. [Richard Nemec]