by Dana Finney

A fascination with fuel cell technology led Luke Wyland to offer Fort McPherson, Ga., as a demonstration site for a proton-exchange membrane (PEM) system. Installed during October 2003, the PEM fuel cell has just completed a 13-month run, with most months averaging 99-100% availability.

“The technology is awesome,” said Wyland, Energy Conservation Program Manager at Fort McPherson’s DPW. “You put gas in one end and heat and electricity come out the other end. And it’s not new—it’s been around for over a century—but now we’re trying to make it feasible to put in people’s homes.”

The demonstration was part of the Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) continuing research to address emerging fuel cell technology as a means of onsite electricity production for installations. The Department of Defense (DOD) is interested in fuel cells because of their potential to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, provide distributed power generation, and enhance energy security for installations.

Fuel cells convert the chemical energy of a fuel into usable electric and thermal energy without combustion or mechanical processes. When integrated with a fuel processor and a solid-state power conditioner, the system produces clean, quiet, reliable electrical power and heat.

ERDC’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) has been evaluating fuel cells for the DOD as this technology has evolved over the past 10 years. At Fort McPherson, CERL contracted with LOGANEnergy, Inc., to install and operate a Plug Power, Inc. GenSys™ 5CS – 5 kW PEM fuel cell for one year. The performance metric was for the unit to provide at least 90% availability. The site selected was Building 532, a single-family officers’ quarters that is the oldest residence on the fort, built in 1887.

The fuel cell is located on the side of the building, near the fenced backyard. The inverter has a power output of 110/120 VAC at 60 Hz, matching the building distribution panel in the mechanical room with its connected loads at 110/120 VAC. It can operate in both grid-parallel and grid-independent configurations. The unit can provide standby power to a dedicated load chosen by the residents living in the building. The waste heat of the fuel cell is captured and acts as a preheat source for the domestic hot water heater, maintaining the tank temperature at 130°F.

“The residents were very pleased with the fuel cell’s performance,” Wyland said. “We had a couple of hiccups when the unit went on standby because, as an interruptible power customer, we occasionally are switched from the natural gas supply to a propane-air mixture. The fuel cell had more of a problem with the air than the propane, and when it sensed a change in the supply, it would shut down.” One reason for Fort McPherson’s selection as a demonstration site was to assess any impacts that an interruptible energy supply might have on the fuel cell’s operation.

Frank Holcomb, fuel cell project manager at CERL, said that the operating data verify performance glitches during propane-air fueled periods. “If you look at the data, we had one month, December 2003, when availability was only at 39% and that was a direct result of the natural gas curtailment by the local utility,” he said. “Under normal operation on the standard natural gas supply, the fuel cell maintained 99-100% availability during most months.”

Fort McPherson’s fuel cell includes a data acquisition system that allows the project team to monitor performance data over the web. In addition, a dedicated telephone line alerts LOGAN if the system fails or needs maintenance so a repair team can be dispatched immediately.

According to Wyland, “The unique thing about our fuel cell is the web-based application that LOGAN went to great lengths to provide. On any day, I could say, ‘I wonder what the fuel cell is doing’ and pull up the operating data on the web page.” The real-time data were also available to CERL, the contractor, and other stakeholders.

An interesting situation came up at Fort McPherson when the local meter readers noticed that the meter on Building 532 was spinning backwards. Called to the site, Wyland explained that the fuel cell was still running but the building was unoccupied, so 2.5 kW of power was being pumped into the utility grid. That meant the house had a negative drain on the grid.

Current fuel cells are still too expensive and have maintenance needs that make them untenable for the average homeowner to install. CERL’s long-term research intends to help bridge technology gaps that can overcome the present shortcomings in the interest of providing the DOD with a viable alternative power source. As with all data collected during the DOD fuel cell demonstrations, it will be shared with industry (and in particular, the fuel cell manufacturer) to move the technology forward in the market.

“The 5-kW PEM fuel cells are preproduction units—sort of like hand-built Rolls Royces. The purpose of these demonstrations is to streamline production and to reduce the units’ size from that of a walk-in freezer to about the size of an air-conditioner condensing unit, and to bring the price down to about that of a luxury automobile, $25,000 to $75,000, based on what you need,” Wyland explained.

For more information:

Contact Frank Holcomb at CERL, 217-373-5864, Franklin.H.Holcomb@erdc.usace.army.mil. Visit the DOD fuel cell website at www.dodfuelcell.com.