2003 Climate Change Fuel Cell Buy-Down Program

Winyard, Lori K.

College Of New Jersey

关键词: 30 Direct Energy Conversion;    Natural Gas;    Apartment Buildings;    Shutdown;    Electricity;   

DOI  :  10.2172/920584
RP-ID  :  None
RP-ID  :  FG26-03NT42016
RP-ID  :  920584

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The Student Apartments Fuel Cell Island Project consists of three (3) 200 kW phosphoric acid fuel cells located in conjunction with three (3) student apartment buildings, each housing 200 students. The Final Report contains limited data because the fuel cells were started up November 2005 and shutdown March 2006. The price of natural gas, which is the primary fuel for the fuel cells, escalated by 200% following hurricane Katrina in August 2005. This escalation in natural gas price made operation of the fuel cells economically unviable, i.e., the cost to produce electricity with the fuel cells far exceeded the cost to purchase electricity from the utility. The College intends to restart the fuel cells once the cost of natural gas stabilizes. The natural gas futures market is currently overpriced even though fundamentally the physical inventory is a five year high. We believe the natural gas market will eventually correct to the fundamentals and drive the cost down. Once this occurs we will restart the fuel cells.