Recent Comment
Share
Last year we heard a little birdy say that hydrogen refueling could be something you can do in your garage with UK-based ITM Power’s home hydrogen refuling station. Well, a prototype for the home-based station has been unveiled.
The station can be used for fueling a hydrogen-powered car, as well as cooking, running the fridge, and heating, and could make hydrogen slightly more efficient since it won’t need to be transported to filling stations like Shell.
ITM's station uses an electrolyser to produce gas from water and electricity, which an internal combustion generator converts to electricity. The unit can only make enough gas overnight to get you 25 miles down the road, so you may have to save up a bit if you have a bit of a commute during the day. And you have to be fairly well off in the first place, since the cost for a unit is expected to be around $4,000, plus installation costs, if the units are mass produced. Taking this into account along with the relatively lower efficiency rate of creating the hydrogen, it seems like it would take quite a long time to recoup the cost.
The company expects units to be available for sale around the end of the year, with buyers likely being large companies with a vehicle fleet. ITM is hoping the home-owner-as-customer potential comes in with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s push to have all new cars sold in Britain to by hybrid or electric by 2020 – apparently because fuel cell cars are then an option for buyers. I have a feeling people would rather get an EV or Prius than an expensive and inefficient hydrogen-powered car and expensive home refueling station. Just my guess…
But the idea of using this as a way to power you home is intriguing. Not as much as solar windows and the like, but intriguing all the same.
Via AutoblogGreen, BBC
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Clinch, July 15, 2008
And if you're going to be traveling less than 25 miles a day, you could probably get by with a more efficient electric car (or with the recent improvements in solar panels, a solar car), but if you travel more than 25 miles a day, then this isn't good enough.
Maybe if they made a solar-hydrogen hybrid, that you can plug in to this while you're not delivering, so the solar panels on the car can power the hydrogen creation process.
-
- +0
-
-
written by Kelly, July 16, 2008
-
- +0
-
-
written by Clinch, July 16, 2008
With the increase in renewable energy sources, electric and electric-related (i.e. this) are steadily reducing their carbon footprint compaired to fossil-cars, and as burning fuel is more efficient in a power plant than in a car engine, if the inefficiencies in this system are less than that difference, then these will be beneficial to the environment.
-
- +0
-
-
written by stevee0506, July 18, 2008
-
- +0
-
-
written by todd, October 22, 2009
Much like fusion, we are almost there...
-
- +0
-
-
written by Lloyd Olson, September 02, 2012
-
- +0
-
-
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
The electricity --> hydrogen --> electricity conversion efficiency is about 25%. So drawing the same amount of energy from the grid overnight, you'd be able to charge an EV enough to go 4x as far as you can with this setup.
And that's a fundamental, thermodynamic limitation, not just a technical issue.
Hydrogen has potential for vehicles that absolutely require long driving range, such as airplanes. But for cars, which get driven < 50 mi/day probably at least 90% of the time overall, it's not worth the efficiency hit.