ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

Lecture-35 : Application of Fuel

Cell
Electronics & Communication Engineering Department,
PSIT Kanpur
ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

Contents
i. Application of Fuel Cell
ii. Advantages
iii. Limitations

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

i. Application of Fuel Cell

1.1 Central Power Generations
1.2 Co-generation Plants
1.3 Automotive Vehicles
1.4 Special Applications

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-601 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

1.1 Central Power generations

• Fuel cell converts chemical energy directly into electrical
energy. That’s why fuel cells are used for power generations
• Efficiency of the fuel cell is more than 50% at the rated load.
• Over the year in the normal power plant the actual output
power vary a factor of 4. Which is not the case with the fuel
cell.
• Fuel cell has lower size and low emission capability .

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

1.2 Co-generation Plants

• It is an efficient way of utilising the energy sources. Fuel cells
generates energy into two forms – electrical and heat.
• Phosphoric acid fuel cell can be used for a co-generation system. It
consists of continuous electrochemical reaction of hydrogen in the
fuel streams and oxygen from air to produce electricity and by
product as heat and hot water.

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

Phosphoric Acid Fuel cell Co-generation Plant

• Turbo compressor is used for
supply pressurized air to cell
• Shift converters are used to
generate hydrogen and CO2 from
CO and water
• Desulphurizer is used for removal
of sulphur from fuel.
• Exhaust are used for recovery of
pressure and heat energy from
exhaust streams.
• Stem Reformer is used to
generate H2 and CO from the fuel

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-601 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

1.3 Automotive Vehicles

It can used in vehicles due to low pollution and higher
efficiency. Normally it is combined with batteries, where
batteries provides power to vehicle and fuel cell is used
to charge the battery.

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

1.4 Special Applications

• Fuel cell can be used as portable power systems.
• Distributed generations
• Emergency power systems
• Breathalyzers
• Carbon monoxide detector
• Food preservation

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

ii. Advantage of Fuel Cell

• Fuel cell can be used as portable power systems.
• Distributed generations
• Emergency power systems
• Breathalyzers
• Carbon monoxide detector
• Food preservation

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

ROE-086 Renewable Energy Resources Unit-3

iii. Limitation of Fuel Cell

• Expensive to manufacture due to high cost of catalysts
(platinum)
• Lack of infrastructure to support the distribution of hydrogen
• Heavy corrosion of electrode results low life span of fuel cell
• A lot of the currently available fuel cell technology is in
prototype stage.

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering