Has anyone looked into the BloomBox fuel cell technology?

They are expensive per watt right now without govt subsidies but could economies of scale bring the technology affordable in the marketplace?

They are decentralized sources of power that can now run on natural gas, cheap and abundant, with the potential of running on other alternatives in the future if/when they are developed economically.

Google, walmart, HP, and a few other companies are using them now in tests running data centers.

Hocus pocus or something tangible with real promise?

disclaimer:  I do NOT represent Bloombox or Google!  LOL.   Just interested in feedback on the fuel cell technology.

There's a serious scale problem for application of current BloomBox technology to residential apps, but it's make a lot of sense for commercial buildings with large cooling loads and other continuous power needs (such as silicon valley server farms) to use them as as non-interruptable power supplies or as peak-generators when on t.o.d./demand power billing. I'm confident that there's a future there, and that competition and production volume will drive the price/costs down over the next decade. As peak-power generation or "hardening" of wind farm output it's viable even at current pricing.

To make sense for a single family home it would have to be in the sub-10KW range, and then only in high-priced power areas. Micro heat/power cogenerators make more sense currently a that level at least in heating dominated climates.

Posted By Dana1 on 21 Apr 2011 04:07 PM
There's a serious scale problem for application of current BloomBox technology to residential apps, but it's make a lot of sense for commercial buildings with large cooling loads and other continuous power needs (such as silicon valley server farms) to use them as as non-interruptable power supplies or as peak-generators when on t.o.d./demand power billing. I'm confident that there's a future there, and that competition and production volume will drive the price/costs down over the next decade. As peak-power generation or "hardening" of wind farm output it's viable even at current pricing.

To make sense for a single family home it would have to be in the sub-10KW range, and then only in high-priced power areas. Micro heat/power cogenerators make more sense currently a that level at least in heating dominated climates.

Thanks Dana, do you have examples of micro heat/cogens?

Wow this technology sounds wonderful. I look forward to it becoming an affordable reality.

http://www.cogenmicro.com/index.php?select=24

-Rosalinda

I found freewatt located in the US.

How does a homeowner figure out if a system like this (cogen)makes economic sense over a traditional furnace? 

I have a furnace to replace before this fall and looking at options.

Honda make a ~1.2KW/12KBTU cogen with something on the order of 100K installations already in Japan.  It's been available in the US for a half-dozen years now, but only bundled with more conventional hot-air or hydronic boilers through ECR/Freewatt. 

The thermal output of the Honda is a bit limited relative to design day loads for typical US single-family homes, but since it's just a fraction of the heat load the duty cycle is quite high, and the 1.2kw power output is fairly well -matched to the average load of a typical US home.   There's a range of condencing hot-air systems it get's bundled with thermal outputs relevant to most existing US housing stock.  The only hydronic system currently available with it is a real monster, suitable only for very large or very leaky (or every high-mass radiation) homes- the combined minimum thermal output is ~80KBTU/hr (nearly 3x my design condition heat load in a ~2200' 1920s antique in central MA.)   In private discussions insiders there have indicated they intend to release a smaller ~20-70K modulating condensing boiler version sometime late this year.  Added to the 12K of the Honda that would still be enough to handle the vast majority of existing housing stock, but still a bit big to run un-buffered/low mass heating systems in many better-than-code well insulated homes.

Installated costs on these bundled systems (not including radiation or distribution ducts) is in the $15-25K range.

SFAIK the only other micro-cogen available in the US is the fully modulating (within it's ~2:1 turndown range) Marathon Eco-Power. It has peak power/thermal output in the 4.7kw/47KBTU range, and could run many US homes on it's own, but with a signifcant surplus on the electrical power.  Depending on the net metering arrangements with the utility, and whether they pay at least wholesale electricity pricing on the excess it may/may-not pencil out as the better deal.  Installed cost (including a large buffer tank) is on the order of $25-35K.  Even though it's a US company, the bulk of the installed base (~3000 units) is in Europe, where subsidies and net-metering regulation has made it more attractive.  But there are a growing number of installations in the US, primarily in New England, but primarily at municipal/commercial buildings, but also at a few real mansion type homes with swimming-pool loads to keep the duty-cycle high.

The grandest scale vision of distributed micro-cogens for residential installation is the VW EcoBlue units being installed, operated (via smart-grid control) and maintained by the German green-power utility LichtBlick, as a means of hardening their extensive wind-power investment.  (Even if your German sucks, run the vidi- you'll get the gist of it.)  They're on track to having a nuke's-worth of highly flexible peak power capacity in microcgens by 2015.  Peak output is something like 4x that of the Marathon and it's power/thermal ratio is higher than the smaller units.  Typical installations will have significant thermal buffering (1000 gallons of tank) to be able to run them optimally for tracking power loads rather than slaved to the thermal load peaks.  (This is true of some Marathon installations as well.)

The best-case fuel utilization for natural gas burned in a standard grid generator is combined-cycle unit delivering 55-60% of the source fuel energy to the  grid as power, or about 50% to the actual load.  Micro cogens only run ~20-25% efficiency as generators, but since they're sending only a tiny fraction of the source fuel energy up the stack and using the thermal output for space heating and domestic hot water, they deliver 85-95% source-fuel utilization as heat/power cogenerators.  But unlike condensing boilers & furnaces of similar or better AFUE, a nice chunk of the output is premium-energy (electricity) rather than low-grade heat.

Posted By slenzen on 22 Apr 2011 10:58 AM
I found freewatt located in the US.

How does a homeowner figure out if a system like this (cogen)makes economic sense over a traditional furnace? 

I have a furnace to replace before this fall and looking at options.

My biz partner has heated his ~6000' 1840s antique of a house in Newton MA with the Freewatt hydronic system for 3+ years now.  His electicity costs are amongst the highest in the lower 48 (~18-22cents/kwh), and the Honda's output is net-metered at retail.  His NG costs are also on the high side $1.50-2.00/therm)  but it's ~$20K installation cost ($17K after subsidies & tax adavanges) has paid for itself already in utility savings, but more than half of that is due to the extremely low-efficiency of the 1940s vintage high mass boiler that it replaced. YMMV.

The net-metering details and electricity costs relative to fuel costs are what makes it or breaks it on a net-present value basis, but at average US utility costs & heat loads it's NPV+ in under 10 years if you're allowed to simply run the meter backwards (net-retail) rather than get paid wholesale prices on the instantaneous output.  If you're paying 12cents/kwh and $1.20/therm for natural gas currently burned  a 78% AFUE furnace, burning the same gas in the Honda buys you about 6kwh/therm =60 cents/therm, and delivers the same heat output as the old furnace, so it's like paying 60 cents/therm for the heat fraction delivered by the Honda. The rest of the gas is burned at ~92-95% efficiency, so you're getting a ~20% cut in fuel use for it's fraction, and at least a 15% reduction overall. 

Put another way, a typical Freewatt installation in a delivers ~4800-5000 kwh/year (more like 6000kwh in my partner's case), which is ~$600 in power savings @ 12cents/kwh, and if it knocks 15% off what was 1500 therms/year gas consumption that's another $270/year at $1.20 therm.  But let's say it costs $8K more than a condensing gas furnace that would have saved you 20% in fuel for $360, that means for the extra $8K you're getting a $510 reduction in annual cost, a 6.25% (after-tax) ROI, assuming electriciy & fuel prices remain flat.  Insert some price inflation and a realistic discount rate into the NPV calc and it's not bad.  But get real numbers, including quotes for alternative systems, subsidy/tax rebates, your actual costs, etc and run a present-value crunch on the real numbers.
s
The hot-air versions of the FreeWatt are significantly less expensive than the hydronic units, but still 2-3x a typical simple swap out of an older system for a condensing furnace.  You might be able to do it for $12K if it's a really simple install, but $15K is probably more realistic.   A  bigger problem might be finding an installer in your area. (Call them, don't go buy their online installer finder, which is NEVER up to date.)
 
To figure out which of the hot-air versions makes the most sense for you, run the numbers on fuel use against base-65F heating degree-day data for your location and the thermal efficiency or AFUE of the existing unit to extract a KBTU/heating degree-day number, then divide by 24 for the KBTU/degree-hour number.  With that you can use the 99% or 97.5% ASHRAE outside design temperature for heating to calculate the real whole-house whole-system as-operated heat load:

(65F- design temp) x KBTU/degree-hour= as-operated heat load

As long as the 12K Honda + max furnace output is the same or bigger than the heat load number, you'll never be cold.  There is inherent margin in that calc if you're also heating hot water with gas/propane, since at least 10% of the fuel use is going to be for hot water heating, so you have at least 10% more degrees below the design temp before the furnace can't keep up.  EG: If the heater is sized EXACTLY for a design day temp at 5F,  that's 60F below 65F, so even if it's 6F colder (-1F) all day long  it'll still keep up.

This method only fails if you're using supplemental heat (woodstoves, etc) or the house was built for high solar gain, in which case you'd have to do some serious crunching to back out the solar & supplemental fractions.

Dana1-

Seems like there are other things to consider about micro combined-heat-and-power (CHP) systems.  If I have a CHP system that is running continuously, then I have an engine that needs maintenance every 6 months (in the case of Marathon system), meaning that I have to change oil, filter, spark plugs, and spark plug wires at that interval.  I cannot drop it off at my Chevy dealer for maintenance, but rather have to hire a guy to come to my house, at what average cost for parts and labor?  I have to find a place to locate the engine (and rest of the unit) that will meet code, and where the noise and vibration of running this oversized lawnmower engine will not be an issue.  I would guess that the lifetime of the engine is less than the lifetime of a typical natural-gas fired furnace, so I have engine replacement costs to factor in.  I cannot independently adjust the electrical and thermal output, so I guess that I run the engine to meet thermal output requirements, with the thermal buffer helping to meet those requirements, and take what I can get for electrical output, so just like many other alternative energy sources it is not constant in time or adjustable to load.  As engines are downsized to meet the thermal requirements for a well-insulated house, the electrical generation efficiency further decreases, as well as the combustion efficiency which impacts emissions. 

It is not nearly as clean a technology as solar PV, solar thermal hot water systems, or passive solar.  I think that the more natural application for CHP is in the commercial sector.  

Lee Dodge
http://www.residentialenergylaboratory.com
in a net-zero source energy modified production house

Maintenance intervals on the Honda are much longer than 6 months. ECR/Freewatt monitor the systems & their operation remotely (via secure internet) and manages the maintenance schedule for the owner. NG is a very clean fuel, and by not short-cycling them or running them at sub-optimal speeds & temperatures (as in an automotive application) the number of engine-hours between maintenance on the Honda is orders of magnitude higher than that of other small-engine applications. IIRC the first scheduled routine maintenance on the Honda at my partner's house occured during the 3rd year of operation, and cost a coupla Franklins.

The Honda already IS right-sized for the thermal loads of a well insulated house, it's the systems they're bundled with by ECR that are oversized for truly efficient homes. The Honda's vibe & noise is pretty low too- 47 dBA at 1 meter, according to the spec. My first-person impression is that it's about as loud as a refrigerator, maybe slightly louder, but nothing annoying even when in the same room, and barely noticeable in the next room. Definitely quieter than a clotheswasher or dryer, and much quieter than most air-handlers on HVAC units. It's no bigger than most wall-hung mod-con boilers, but slightly bigger than some tankless HW heaters. ( If they sold it un-bundled I'd have no problem finding 2-3 square feet of floor area next to my buffer tank. :-) )

Combustion efficiencies & mechanical of internal combustion engines does change appreciably with size, and the thermal output of the Honda is still bit less than half that of a gas-fired tank HW heater. Buffering that heat in a larger tank doesn't take much space or expense, so I'm not sure where the incentive is for units much smaller than the Honda, even if there WERE and incentive to do so. IIRC mini-& micro cogens in the US are required by regulation to be at least 70% efficient strictly as heating equipment, which put's an upper bound on the electrical output, and the versions avaiable in the US are running ~ 20% thermally efficient as generators to meet that spec. The VW powered EcoBlue is close to 30% thermally efficient as a generator (simliar to an old-school large scale fossil plant), which means it wouldn't likely meet regs in the US. But there are no inherent technical barriers to be overcome in making smallre units with similar efficiencies.

Marathon's recommended maintenance schedule on the EcoPower is a $250 service call every 4000 engine hours, and major overhauls at 40,000 hours. At full rated thermal input/output that would be every 2000 therms of fuel use. See page 3:http://www.nist.gov/el/upload/5-2-Cocking-Ecopower.pdf If used as the sole thermal source for even my less-than-superinsulated antique house it would be ~17-20 years between major overhauls. (My oversized cast-iron gas boiler didn't last more than about 15 years, nor do I expect my low mass boiler to make it much further than that. ) If used at a much higher duty cycle the calendar time intervals are shorter, but the economic output (electricity) much higher.

It IS possible to set up the Marathon to track the electrical load, but that setup would be more appropriate for a light-commercial app than a residence. It's also a bit louder than the Honda (55dBA at 1 meter at full output) but still not a screamer. (I've not stood next to one in operation yet, can't tell you what that sounds like, but it's well within standards for heating system noise. Most washers on spin cycle are similar or louder according to specs- you'd probably want to keep it in the basement.)

If used as a primary space heating burner for the facilities, from a grid-operator's point of view distributed cogen output predictably & reliably tracks with regional space-heating loads, making them a near-perfect complement to compressor or resistance based electric heating. This isn't pie-in-the sky- it's Denmark & the Netherlands today. But obviously the distributed cogen as grid-generator model works best where there's a reasonable thermal load for more than a few months per year (better in Maine than Arizona.)

All maintenance & upkeep on the EcoBlue is handled by LichtBlick, not the building owner. Being under the direct control of the utility it's going one better than most regions with a high saturation of distributed cogenerators, making it far more useful for renewables-hardening and peak-load generation, a capacity not-yet-available with the Honda or Marathon.

Sure it's not as clean as solar PV, but in the current US grid-source mix micro-cogeneration provides on the order of ~80% of the lifetime carbon-reduction benefit for ~30% of the lifecycle cost of PV. In terms of carbon savings per dollar compares VERY favorably with residential-scale PV, better than active solar thermal, better than condensing-fossil burner space heating, but not as good as passive solar. Only in some dream-world would they become the dirtiest grid-source before their lifecycle was up. (I'd like to live in a world that clean though.) In hydro powered grid regions there's an argument that they're not as clean as the status-quo though. Also consider that solar thermal & passive solar aren't offsetting electric power environmental footprints, and are rightly in a very different class of investment, given they produce no premium-energy output, only low-grade heat.

Call me Miss Construed! (Sloppy/unclear writing -mea culpa!).

The short-sheet clarification on heating solely with the Marathon EcoPower is:

With 40,000 engine hours between major overhauls (as a working definition of useable lifespan to compare with furnace/boiler equipment life), that would work out to 15-20 years of service at my house.

2000 therms (4000 engine hours @ ~0.5 therm/hour) is the fuel use between $250 maintenance service calls ), which would be every 1.5-2 years for me.

My fuel costs are 1.8x yours, but my electricity may also come at a similar premium. (It varies from 15-20 cents/kwh)