Fuel Cells and the Off-Grid Power Market

by Kerry-Ann Adamson

To those of us reading this in North America or the most of (old) Europe, the term off-grid tends to conjure up images of folks who have to some degree turned their backs on the world and gone to live in the back of beyond. But this is far from the reality we have today.

In 2011 the off-grid power market contains telecoms base stations, weather and environmental monitoring stations, remote location villages and towns, hiking huts, eco-hotels, forward military bases as well, of course, individual homes.

But what is off-grid? As with many, many other terms off-grid means different things to different people. In reality though the majority of definitions center on not being connected to the main electricity grid or not being connected to both the natural gas and electricity grid. Whilst it may be becoming more fashionable to be not connected to the electricity grid it is much more challenging - and therefore increasing the added value for fuel cell technology - to be not connected to both the gas and the electricity grid. If we take a romp through each of the end user markets, in turn, we can see where fuel cells could/ do/can't fit.

Weather and Environmental Monitoring Stations

This is an area close to my heart as when I was 21 I spent a year doing weather monitoring. The upside was I spent a year wandering around the Scottish Trossachs collecting water and information from monitoring stations and getting very fit in the process. The downside was I spent a year lugging a stupid amount of equipment around the Scottish Troassachs, in all weathers, to download information from weather monitoring stations. If at the time we had the opportunity of M2M communication for the stations, powered by a small fuel cell power unit, which meant only having to pop in every few weeks with a new fuel cartridge I would have taken it on as a mission to persuade my boss to install them.

Most types of civilian monitoring stations have low but constant power requirements. In range of a few tens of watts there are tens of thousands of these stations around the world. At the minute they are powered by either a hybrid renewable source/battery or a battery. The benefits of fuel cells are they are lighter than industrial batteries to carry up, to replace and install, the fuel is easy to replace when it runs out, they are not affected by the change in temperatures, as well as being the prerequisite of silent and low to zero emissions. So, at the minute, it is an operating cost benefit.

Are companies targeting this market? Yes, but only a handful at the minute. This is one market has the potential to be massive but needs to come a bit more out of shadows before its real potential is recognised.

The market potential reaches into the tens of thousands, globally. The fuel cell deployment of fuel cells for remote monitoring to date is smaller than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but growing.

Telecomms Base Stations

Mobile phone base stations are either grid tied or off-grid. At present the overwhelming majority of deployments of fuel cells into this market has been for backup power to grid tied units. So when the grid fails the fuel cell system kicks in. The conventional wisdom, as such, was that the off-grid market was at present too hard to address.

As can be seen in the chart below though, published by the GSMA, this misses a market of some 80,000 base stations that are, or will be, rolled out up until the end of next year.

At present off-grid base stations tend to be two diesel generators - one as the primary and one as the back-up system. Understandably the GSMA has made a strong push to develop amongst its members "green base stations" to move away from this OPEX heavy option. Although deployments of hybrid renewable/battery stations have happened, they have not been globally deployed in the thousands. So fuel cell technology still has an opportunity to get in on the ground level.

Benefits of fuel cells for off-grid base stations? To date the bottleneck in this system has definitely been sizing of the components. The size of solar panel needed to power the base station and provide enough excess power to turn convert hydrogen, through an electrolyzer, for storage and use in a fuel cell when there is no sun. Now more options are opening up with one company using Ammonia as a fuel for the fuel cells, another methanol and yet another going to full green route and using a renewable /fuel cell hybrid. With companies increasingly having access to all the right bits of a system to make this work this market is ripe for rapid expansion.

The market potential reaches into the tens of thousands, globally. Current deployment of fuel cells for off-grid base stations size to date - mythically small.

Tourism (Hiking Huts and Eco-Hotels)

Hiking huts and eco-hotels are two ends of the spectrum of buildings for the growing eco-tourism market. We want to travel, and experience the peace and tranquillity that comes from being in the middle of nowhere, but we don't want to mess it up either. Hiking huts tend to have basic amenities and be in very fragile environmental locations whilst eco-hotels are often top of the range with all the amenities, but are concerned with reducing their impact on the environment.

Both of these buildings at present either use diesel generators, with the expense not only of maintaining the generator but also transporting the fuel, or a hybrid renewable system with deep discharge batteries. The increasing interest in using stationary fuel cells in these locations is based on their attributes of silence, no emissions, and low running costs. Sadly, though, there has been limited (i.e. very little) interest by fuel cell system developers for this application, beyond the glossy picture on the odd website. Possibly due to the perception of niche market, or possibly due to the need for high durability and low running costs, this is one market with a large potential but to date has been consigned pretty much to the story books.

The market potential here is in the low thousands of small systems, globally, for hiking huts and, at present, hundreds of larger units for high end eco-hotels. Current deployment of fuel cells for eco-tourism buildings to date is still in the story books.

Homes

It may surprise many that it in the United States there is thought to around a quarter of a million off grid homes. Most situated in the western United States, these off-gridders are a mix of "stick to the man" types, eco-warriors and the average Joe. What they have in common is a very high level of education on energy, energy use, and energy efficiency, and they don't suffer fools gladly. At present, the predominate technology to provide heat and power to the off-grid home is a hybrid mix of multiple renewable resources (solar and ground source heat pumps and micro turbines) along with deep discharge batteries.

Not surprisingly, given the level of energy awareness in this sector they were one of the first to question the potential for using fuel cells for home power with the resounding answer coming back of, "Interesting, but not yet." Now with the development potential of using hydrogen for home energy storage of excess renewables or using propane (not renewable but readily available) this market could be ripe for the next stepping stone in the roll out of the technology. But this is no soft target market. To exploit this market there will need to be a champion who can showcase the option to other off-gridders, who tend to be a very tight community, and cut through all the marketing, um, flannel.

The market potential is in the tens of thousands of homes in the north of the globe. The current fuel cells deployment for off-gridders - not yet but potentially round the next bend in the yellow brick road.

Villages

It is well known that many people live without access to electricity. Increasingly governments have enacted legislation to ensure that this situation is changed as fast as possible. In some countries this has seen the roll out of liquid fuels for generators. In some, the plan is to expand the grid as fast as possible and in others it has seen the subsidies of adoption of micro-renewables.

Canada has a pioneering village of Bella Coola which has installed a renewable hydrogen storage, fuel cell combination to power this village. This high visibility example has caused a large increase in interest in using fuel cells and hydrogen in other locations around the world. Although not yet ready for use perhaps in Africa the option to roll it out in many other parts of the world is not at hand.

The market potential here is very high if taken sequentially via cost down and roll out of installer and repair engineers training. Current fuel cells deployment for off grid village - high visibility world leading examples but not the norm.

So, in summary, is fuel cell technology for off-grid applications a myth? No, but there is a long way to go.

Photo by Bill Brine/flickr/Creative Commons

Kerry-Ann Adamson is a research director for Pike Research with a focus on fuel cells.