Fuel cells in distributed generation

Conference · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:20013478

O'Sullivan, J B

In the past the vertically integrated electric utility industry has not utilized Distributed Generation (DG) because it was viewed as competition to central station power production. Gas utilities have been heavily and aggressively involved in the promotion of gas fired DG because for them it is additional load that may also balance the winter load. With deregulation and restructuring of the electricity industry DG is now viewed in a different light. For those utilities that have sold their generation assets DG can be a new retail service to provide to their customers. For those who are still vertically integrated, DG can be an asset management tool at the distribution level. DG can be utilized to defer capital investments involving line and substation upgrades. Coupled to this new interest in DG technologies and their performance characteristics are the associated interests in implementation issues. These range from the codes and standards requirements and hardware for interfacing to the grid as well as C{sup 3}-I (command, control, communication--intelligence) issues. The latter involves dispatching on-grid or customer sited resources, monitoring their performance and tracking the economic transactions. Another important aspect is the impact of DG resources (size, number and location) on service area dynamic behavior (power quality, reliability, stability, etc.). EPRI has ongoing programs addressing all these aspects of DG and the distribution grid. Since fuel cells can be viewed as electrochemical engines, and as with thermomechanical engines, there doesn't have to be a best fuel cell. Each engine can serve many markets and some will be better suited than others in a specific market segment (e.g. spark ignition in cars and turbines in planes). This paper will address the status of developing fuel cell technologies and their application to various market areas within the context of Distributed Generation.

• Research Organization: Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (US)
• OSTI ID: 20013478
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
ACID ELECTROLYTE FUEL CELLS
DISPERSED STORAGE AND GENERATION
FUEL CELL POWER PLANTS
LOAD MANAGEMENT
MOLTEN CARBONATE FUEL CELLS
PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE FUEL CELLS
SOLID OXIDE FUEL CELLS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT