Fuel cells provide electricity for homes

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Kyoto-based Steven Rogers is the business development executive for Ceres Power, a British venture company that specialises in solid oxide fuel cells. This technology can supply 80% of a modern home’s electricity and heat up all of its water.

“Most of our money comes from investors,” he says. “We are in the process of commercialising technology that originated in Imperial College, London University.”

Ceres Power was set up in 2001, after years of research at the university.

“We have had several rounds of investment; last year, for example, we received about $35 million of additional investment, so we have enough cash to see us [through] for several years of further development. At the same time, we are developing relationships with partners who will make products based upon our technology, and then enter the market,” he adds.

Rogers was a scholar at the Daiwa Foundation, a charity that fosters links between Japan and the UK. While under its auspices, he learned Japanese and Japanese business practices — two vital elements in his role today.

He stresses that Ceres is a “technology”, not a “product” company; other firms, including Japanese ones, will manufacture their fuel cells under licence. Ceres Power’s brainchild is a remarkably compact fuel cell, the prototypes of which are made in a state-of-the-art plant in Horsham, southern England.

Rogers grasps one of the cells, which, for display purposes, are housed in a robust plastic coating. The cell is just 1 millimetre thick, with a surface area of 80 square centimetres; 100,000 tiny holes drilled by lasers perforate its surface. He adds: “A fuel cell is like a battery, in a sense; but if you have a continuous supply of fuel and air, it doesn’t run out in the same way that a battery does.”

The cell is made up of three layers — cathode, electrolyte and anode — which are supported by a steel frame. Natural gas on one side of the cell, and air on the other, says Rogers, generate a voltage across the cell. Electrons flow around the circuit, thus the cell effectively works as a battery. But, unlike a traditional battery, Ceres fuel cells last years. “We are targeting 10 years,” he states.

A decade equates to about 90,000 hours of use. A typical home needs 120 separate Ceres cells, which are stacked and form part of the combined heat and power, or CHP system, roughly the same size as a typical domestic boiler. The system, which Rogers says will cost between $5,000 and $8,000, will provide most of a home’s electricity. At the same time, he says, the fuel cell process produces heat, which will be enough to supply a home with all of its hot water needs. Other companies do make similar systems, he points out, but they cost a great deal more, retailing for $20,000.

Gas is essential to the Ceres fuel cell process. The stacks will be powered by piped gas in the same way that homes are supplied with gas from the mains in the street. When the householder turns on a light, explains Rogers, the energy-making process will be immediately activated in the fuel cell stack.

The green credentials in this process are, in part, connected to the flow of power. Without such a home-generating system, a typical house gets its electricity, already generated, from a distant power station. But Rogers says that, even in the most efficient gas turbine-driven power station, any large-scale process means an initial loss in energy of 40%, lost as heat as the fuel is burned. Then, the electricity has to travel by cable and pylon to the consumer, with an additional 20% of energy lost along the way. By the time the electricity reaches the home, only 40% of the original energy remains.

“Heat is always wasted if you have centralised power generation,” says Rogers. “If you can generate power in the home, you are inherently close to a user of heat. So you can make use of that heat.

“You cannot send heat down a power line; you can only send electricity. If you compare that to everyone having a power station in their own home, [even] a little one, [both] the user of electricity and the user of heat are there.”

The Ceres system, then, is akin to a mini-power station, situated in a home. But, he says, such a system cannot hope to be 100% efficient, as a small proportion of the electricity generated must be used to power the system’s own blower, to keep it cool, and other working parts, such as its pumps.

Rogers’ strategic location in Kyoto enables him to easily reach the company’s partners, some being household Japanese company names. He expects the Ceres Power fuel cell technology to reach the market in two and half years. “If there was one in every home in Japan, for example, there would be a very significant reduction in CO2 emissions,” he concludes.