ITM Power now has a demonstration house with home hydrogen station
We've written about ITM Power and their plans to build a home hydrogen generating station several times before. The British company now has a prototype unit running in a Sheffield along with a Ford Focus that has been converted to run on hydrogen. The hydrogen generator includes an electrolyzer to produce H2 from water, and the hydrogen in the demonstration house is being used as a vehicle fuel, as well as for heating, cooling and other functions. Powering the generator is possible through the use renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. Honda is developing something along the same lines that it calls the Home Energy station. The HES however, reforms natural gas to produce hydrogen and then uses the hydrogen both to fuel a vehicle as well as a fuel cell that provides electricity and heat to the home. ITM, for some reason, has chosen to use a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine to drive a generator to provide electricity to the home. The losses going from renewable electricty to hydrogen and back would greatly outweigh any benefits. At least the Honda system skips the electricity-hydrogen-electricity loop. On the plus side, ITM believes it can sell its hydrogen generator for about $4,000 and hopes to produce it by the end of this year. You can check out the video report at the BBC site.
[Source: BBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin M. 12:04PM (7/10/2008)
Ugh, hydrogen is just so wasteful. There is nothing better for our transportation than battery (or capactior) electric vehicles. And they are far superior for refueling at home.
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Keith Wakeham 2:14PM (7/10/2008)
Nothing so wasteful except.... I don't know... making batteries. Its a dirty business and the more complex the battery the less recyclable and those materials they use.... ya, not so renewable and not so recyclable.
I'll take wasteful hydrogen process to start, refine as we go to fuel cells. But then again some people are willing to pay a 10000-15000 dollar premium for a sedan with 40 mile range, i'm sure you are willing to pay about 60000 dollar premium for 200 mile range on an average $25k sedan. If you are willing to do that why aren't you willing to waste that money on a wind turbine to make the energy for the wasteful system. Energy is renewable (until the sun burns out) and minerals aren't, just so you know.
meme 12:33PM (7/10/2008)
Hydrogen at home:
"Throw out half of your energy at home (and over half of what remains when on the road), using a device that may cost as little as $4,000."
Electricity at home:
"Throw out 10% of your energy at home (and another 10% on the road), using a device that came with your house."
What a comparison.
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darius 12:53PM (7/10/2008)
I think they should go one step farther, how about take electricity to generate hydrogen then use the hydrogen to compress air and then use the compressed air to generate electricity and then power your home, now that would be a winner! some people are just looney... what a waste of money and time...
EVan 1:42PM (7/10/2008)
@ darius... good thinking!
But hey, why stop there?
How about taking that compressed air and running a generator to create electricity to shine a light towards a parabolic mirror focusing the light onto a stream of oil that's used to heat molten salt that's used to boil water into steam that's used to turn a turbine that's used to create electricity to power the home...
While they're at it they could put a wind turbine on top of the car to generate electricity that can be stored to use for electrolysis later at home!
Hamish T 1:40PM (7/10/2008)
If you store hydrogen in a tank that only has to be manufactured once and can be refilled an infinite number of times, is this better than a battery that has a limited number of charge cycles and must be disposed of at the end of it's life and replaced with a new battery.
In the long run is hydrogen better for the enviroment (if created from renewable electricity sources), than the amount of waste created by the manufacture and diposal of current batteries?
Does anyone know the answer to this?
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darius 1:51PM (7/10/2008)
or we could use Altairnano batteries with 95% charge in under 10 minutes No battery degradation over 20,000 cycles of full charge and discharge
karlInSanDiego 2:36PM (7/10/2008)
My reaction to the seemingly wasteful triple energy conversion is that if you need wind/solar to create your energy, that is transient (especially solar), so storing it as hydrogen is a clean storage process. While a simplistic view is to plug it into grid to store, eventually all power would have the same timing and the power company would have challenges storing it all for night time. Resevoir pumping is how some Nuclear plants store up reserve energy during off hours. But at a home level the hydrogen storage does have merits over local battery arrays.
I don't like the idea of Nat. Gas reformation at all. That's not change we can believe in.
Hamish T 2:35PM (7/10/2008)
Darius thanks for the info about Altairnano batteries.
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darius 4:28PM (7/10/2008)
Their grid battery system might be of intrest to you as well. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0413723.htm
Overall the tech is outstanding and blows away all others. The only problem is still the cost at $2 / Wh
Phoenix SUT rated at about 120 mile range uses 35kWh Altair battery at ~ $75k price tag. Once they get some production going in the new facility, hopefully they can get the price down quite a bit. I figure that at $.50 / Wh and limiting to 40 mile range (12kWh battery) we would be looking at ~ $6k With their specs and no thermal runaway issues like others, we would have a winner.
meme 3:20PM (7/10/2008)
"Don't know... making batteries. Its a dirty business and the more complex the battery the less recyclable and those materials they use.... ya, not so renewable and not so recyclable.'
Let's enumerate the typical ingredients in a lithium phosphate battery, shall we?
* Lithium salt: produced in such bulk that it's only ~$5/kg. Even from seawater, it's only ~$30/kg. It's just extracted from brine pools currently -- hardly even "mining". Fuel cells, on the other hand, contain platinum, one of the rarest elements on the planet, and extracted from ores with only low ppm quantities.
* Phosphoric acid (think soft drinks)
* Iron
* Sugar (burned to deposit the carbon binding)
* Very thin polymer membrane (generally PVC or similar -- think cling wrap)
* One of many different corrosive but usually otherwise generally environmentally benign electrolytes
* Aluminum or other casing
Please explain to me how this is "dirty". And while you're at it, debunk virtually every peer reviewed study that says that the manufacture of a vehicle causes the emission of only a small fraction of its lifetime pollutants.
"But then again some people are willing to pay a 10000-15000 dollar premium for a sedan with 40 mile range"
And others will pay a several hundred thousand dollar premium (most of which is, mind you, covered by car company subsidies) for fuel cells.
"Energy is renewable (until the sun burns out) and minerals aren't, just so you know."
Yeah. Things like lithium are only found in the world's oceans in the "quadrillions of tons" quantities. We'll be running out of that any day now.
"If you store hydrogen in a tank that only has to be manufactured once and can be refilled an infinite number of times,"
Just ignoring the fact that manufacturing emissions are essentially always dwarfed by operating emissions unless you treat your vehicle like a showpiece and never drive it, fuel cells have finite lifespans, too. Generally less than that of modern automotive batteries. The DOE 2015 target for fuel cells is a mere 5,000 hours/150,000 miles. For a 150-mile EV, that'd mean a mere 1,000 charge cycles. On RC groups, they demonstrated 1,000 charge cycles on phosphates in *abusive* usage -- charging at 3-4C and discharging at 6-8C (15-20 minutes and 8-10 minutes, respectively), with one batch discharging all the way to 0V. In non-abusive usage, A123 has demonstrated 7,000 cycles.
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Hamish T 3:39PM (7/10/2008)
meme. Thanks for the detailed insights, I didn't know that lithium phosphate cells were created from such benign and natural ingredients. I will read up on the subject further.
Thanks again.
Shipey 9:15AM (7/11/2008)
Another RC Groups member!
It's the best place on the web to see the latest battery tech being mercilessly flogged by real world enthusiasts!
The A123 cells are already very promising, and I'm curious to see how they've progressed with GM's Volt funding.
Battery tech is finally a high priority for development, and with so much going into it I doubt it will be too long before we see some real improvements.
Miguel 12:27PM (7/14/2008)
This is exciting news. As energy costs continue to increase, it is becoming more critical for the world to transition to an alternative fueling infrastructure. As a representative of the Hydrogen Education Foundation, I am helping people understand that hydrogen carries the promise to guide us away from depending on foreign energy imports, while simultaneously improving our environment by reducing greenhouse gases. The ITM and Honda home units provide a way for people to reduce their carbon footprint while supporting their home energy needs and refueling a hydrogen vehicle. These units support the hydrogen industry’s efforts towards building a hydrogen refueling network.
Transitioning to a new fueling infrastructure is a complex endeavor, requiring a multi-lateral effort involving multiple industries. Energy companies such as Shell, Chevron, and BP, and the Department of Energy to establish additional hydrogen fueling stations across the country. In fact, just recently Shell opened one of the first dual stations in the US that offers both hydrogen and gasoline at the same location: http://www.greenbang.com/3598/shell-opens-renewable-hydrogen-fueling-station The hydrogen is produced onsite using an electrolizer to split water. The technology used at the new Shell station is similar to the electrolyzer used in ITM’s Home Energy System. The home systems will also support the development of a hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite everyone to please visit and ask us questions at http://www.h2andyou.org.
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