IEEE Spectrum August, 2008 - 10

1/30tH

the amount of energy required to boil water in a container lined with copper nanorods versus what's needed
for an ordinary container, according to researchers at rensselaer polytechnic Institute, in troy, N.Y.

A connecticut Fuel cell
in South Korea's Grid
Breakthrough contracts revive hydrogen hopes
in electric power

Good diGeStion: A fuel cell plant powers a Kirin Brewery operation in Tokyo, which runs on its
waste gases in a self-contained system. photo: Fuelcell enerGy

f you had asked a decade ago about fuel
cells, you would have learned that two
Connecticut companies dominated the
U.S. market for small power plants, their
only real application at that time. After
a lot of ballyhoo in the meantime about
putting fuel cells in cars and the "hydrogen economy," the same two Connecticut
companies still reign in the fuel cell market today, selling essentially the same
technology. Now one of them looks to be
taking off, having received a big boost
from some unlikely customers in Asia,
beginning with a Japanese brewer. Fuel
cells finally seem set to become a significant player in electric power.
FuelCell Energy (FCE), in Danbury,
Conn., was founded in 1969 as Energy
Research Corporation. It has focused
single-mindedly on the molten carbonate
cell, which operates at a relatively high
temperature. Fuel cells cause hydrogen
16

NA * IEEE spEctrum * August 2008

to react with oxygen, across an electrolyte and with the help of catalysts at the
cathode and anode, to produce an electric current and water as a by-product.
Generally, fuel cells run at temperatures
that make it necessary for the catalytic
elements in the electrodes to be made
from expensive materials like platinum
or palladium, and the catalysts tend to
be sensitive to impurities like carbon
monoxide. The Danbury cell, running at
about 600 °C, consumes the carbon monoxide along with its hydrocarbon fuel. Its
internal steam reforming system, which
can take the hydrogen it needs from coal
gas, natural gas, or waste processing and
digester streams, distinguishes the FCE
fuel cell from all the others.
FCE's big break came in 2003 with an
order from the Japanese beer maker Kirin
Brewery Co., in Tokyo, where a battery of
cells would consume the brewery's diges-

tive gases while producing electricity to
run the plant. Further business came
from a variety of customers in the United
States and Asia, almost always organizations that wanted to brag about using an
innovative green energy system.
Having gained some attention in Asia
with the Kirin order, FCE took another
big step up the path toward full commercial viability this year, when South
Korea's leading independent power producer, POSCO Power Corp., in Seoul,
placed an order for 25.6 megawatts of
fuel cell power plants and entered into
a 10-year manufacturing and distribution agreement with the company. That
agreement affirmed POSCO's faith in
the commercial promise of the technology. Its purchases doubled FCE's
orders and unequivocally made FCE the
world leader in stationary fuel cells. A
second Connecticut company, United
Technologies Corp.'s UTC Power, in
South Windsor-maker of the fuel cells
that powered the Apollo vehicles on
their trips to the moon-is the next-mostimportant player.
Since obtaining the breakthrough
Kirin order in 2003, FCE boasts that it
has brought its system costs down by
70 percent. Tony Leo, the company's vice
president of applications engineering,
says it set up a team to drive down costs
systematically, using "value engineering"
techniques to assess every component of
a plant. That led to a decision to separate
the fuel cell stacks, the dc-ac converter,
and the thermal system rather than put
all three major components in one expensive enclosure.
FCE is aiming to get installation costs
down to US $2 per watt by 2012, compared with $3.25 or more five years ago.
Analysts at ThinkPanmure and Lazard
Capital believe that FCE has reasonable prospects of achieving profitability
within 18 to 24 months because of its successful cost cutting and the diversity of
promising markets for its product.
-William Sweet
www.specTrum.ieee.org

http://www.specTrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum August, 2008