Flexible Fuel Cell Systems

Across the world research is being funded for a wide range of fuel cell systems that produces clean, reliable and affordable energy from a wide range of fuels. These technologies will in effect, enable consumers to generate their own electricity for less than what they pay their utility, and to reduce their carbon emissions by 50-100% per kilowatt, depending on the fuel that is being utilised.

Right now across Europe and America, there are various technology teams developing fuel cell power systems to sustain life on the Mars Mission scheduled in roughly 10 years’ time. And these are the top futurists who are creating power sources that we are often dismissive about – in effect they are inventing tomorrow, today.

A brave new breed of these futurists believesthat our energy policy must be technology-neutral and performance-based and that we can solve our current energy problems through a combination of technology, innovation and conservation.

An outstanding example of a flexible fuel cell system would be thesolid oxide fuel cell, or SOFC. This SOFC is also set to go mobile, with new systemsproviding auxiliary or "hotel" power to long-haul trucks. They may also keep a solar-powered surveillance drone in the sky for what could be years at a time!

If that sounds too good to be true –consider this: The SOFC's "two-way" fuel cell system could in addition -electrolyze water (into hydrogen and oxygen) to store backup energy as hydrogen.

This hydrogen would then supplement intermittent solar and wind power. In time, say researchers, SOFCs might show up as range extenders—power units that augment batteries to extend distance driven electrically—in hybrid vehicles.

SOFCs have long been seen as second-string to the more well-known hydrogen-based fuel cells. That's because SOFCs at temperatures deemed too hot for cars. In the mid-1990s when the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) was selecting the technologies that would go into thegreen car of the future, it chose the 80-degree Celsius polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells over the 1,000-degree C SOFC.

Today some 120 green-minded Fortune 500 corporate plants &stateuniversity facilities—notably, subsidized distributed power demonstration projects in various parts of America – using SOFC’s are the leading lights and future power evangelists headed for a clean green energy filled future.