sustainable energy on demand
The Fuel Cell
With very few exceptions, today’s sustainable microgrids use batteries to store energy from renewable sources to provide electricity when wind is not blowing, or the sun is not shining. It is a less than perfect system. Batteries have limited capacity and are expensive.
In a typical installation, there are only enough batteries to provide backup electricity for several hours, perhaps a day. That means that a natural event like a prolonged heavy storm, or a fire – dictated energy cutoff could cause the lights to go out in a battery backed up microgrid community.
Moreover, today’s best batteries rely upon lithium and cobalt. The mining of these metals is a “dirty” business with significant adverse environmental consequences.
For example, the production of one ton of lithium releases up to 15 tons of CO2. Mining also requires large quantities of water in typically very water-scarce parts of the world. In addition, as more and more battery powered electric cars, smart phones and computers keep entering the market, shortages and sharp price increases for these metals are predicted.
Lithium cobalt batteries are also widely known to have “heat dissipation” issues that make them susceptible to dangerous, spontaneous combustion. Finally, disposition of lithium cobalt batteries results in significant environmental toxicity.
The Deer Ridge Sustainability Project plans to present the advantages of using a fuel cell in place of battery storage to guarantee “on demand” electricity at lower (environmental) cost.
The fuel cell was invented in 1832 (!). The instrument combines hydrogen with oxygen from ambient air and releases electrons in the form of electricity with pure water as its only by-product.
With batteries, ever more batteries are needed to store more energy. One fuel cell, however, can produce electricity indefinitely for as long as there is a supply of hydrogen. The hydrogen replaces the batteries.
To secure the energy supply of a fuel cell assisted microgrid community, there is only a need to store hydrogen in below ground tanks. That is much cheaper than increasing battery storage. Storing hydrogen is also far safer than storing propane or other fossil fuels.
The hydrogen is produced during the daytime with excess electricity generated with renewable solar and wind energy. Even if in a worst-case scenario the hydrogen supply runs out, a tanker truck with hydrogen can replenish supplies from nearby distribution facilities.
In short, hydrogen offers reliability and flexibility that batteries don’t provide.