The ABC reports that ASX listed fuel cell company Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (ASX – CFU) with origins as a CSIRO spinoff is headed to find its place in the sun as a part of Energiewende. – Germany’s renewable energy incentives and regulations attracting Australian companies –
One of their products is BlueGen a gas fired fuel cell, they say –
BlueGen can be installed on-site in your home or business. It contains standard connections and operates with virtually no noise. Key benefits include:
Up to 36 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day
200 litres of ‘free’ hot water per day
Carbon dioxide savings of up to 14.5 tonnes per year
Unconstrained by seasons or weather
Simple installation with standard connections
Integrates easily with renewable technologies such as solar PV or solar thermal hot water
Constantly monitored by advanced fault detection technology
All sounds good. Here is the CFU share price history – a great thing about the ASX is that all regulatory filings and company announcements are easily searched and downloaded as pdf’s.
They claim 60% efficiency in electricity generation (some of the time) and a further 20-25% recovery as heat. If that were true their front door would be battered down by eager buyers.
The usual results of these type is 20-25% electricity and 60% recovery as heat. These CHP units are popular in Denmark where they supply 4-10 houses. There are over 600 of these and 9 or more supplying entire suburbs.
Since that the average annual temperature in Copenhagen is 8℃ compared with the Melbourne figure of 15℃, they might do better in northern Europe, especially with all those EU enacted subsidies.
Graeme No.3, As a shareholder of the Australian company (CFU), the claim is in fact true. Electrical efficiency of 60% to the power point is correct. The fuel cell is unique in that it has the highest known electrical efficiency (go aussie R&D!) of any fuel cell and is generally known as electricity led, rather than heat led. It can also be networked with 10s, 100s, or thousands to form a Virtual Power Plant, each residing in individual homes and business replacing the need for inefficient (25%-30%) centralised coal fire power generation.
The units are now commercially available in Germany, UK and Netherlands with subsidy support until volume orders help in bringing the price down much like what happened to solar PV.