Fuel Cell Deployed for Energy Efficiency at West Deptford
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The fuel cell unit at West Deptford – complete with Johnson Matthey’s catalyst in the fuel cell stack.
Fuel cells are already being used to provide clean power for commercial buildings, hospitals and universities. With its commitment to developing fuel cell catalysts and components as a business stream, Johnson Matthey is itself seeing the advantages of this green technology, having installed a fuel cell unit as a source of energy at its West Deptford site in New Jersey, USA.
The state of New Jersey provides around 50% of the capital costs for new users of fuel cells through its Green Energy incentive programme. In July 2008, with support from the state programme, a phosphoric acid fuel cell unit was installed at our West Deptford II site – an independent facility within the larger West Deptford campus that manufactures mixed oxide powders. The electrical output of the fuel cell unit meets the electricity needs of the facility. Furthermore, the production process at the facility also uses large amounts of hot water (‘wash water’ – for washing the mixed oxide filter cakes) which is also supplied by the fuel cell, operating as a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system. Previously, the hot water was produced by a conventional gas boiler.
So what has this initiative achieved? The fuel cell requires natural gas but this consumption is offset by the reduction in energy needed to heat the water for the washing process and by not using grid electricity. When operating in full CHP mode the fuel cell is 80% to 90% efficient and reduces CO2 emissions by at least a third compared with the grid electricity / gas boiler combination. Around $12,000 a month has been saved in electricity alone. A few teething problems caused by the fluctuating demand for power were encountered but these have now all been resolved.
We are now looking to install an insulated stainless steel tank into the wash water loop to improve energy efficiency and maximise our use of the heat from the fuel cell. With the unit at West Deptford, we are seeing our own technology in action – the unit, sourced from United Technologies Corporation, came complete with a Johnson Matthey manufactured catalyst in the fuel cell stack!
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