PPH eyes fuel cells to help reduce electrical costs

Fuel cells, a technology once only seen aboard U.S. spacecraft, may be coming to three North County hospitals.

A Palomar Pomerado Health district committee voted last week to explore the idea of creating mini-power plants at the district's three hospitals in Poway and Escondido that would be powered by fuel cells the district would lease.

Each plant could produce one megawatt of power ---- up to 43 percent of the energy used annually by the facilities, said Barbara Hamilton, sustainability manager for PPH.

The fuel cells would be leased from Bloom Energy, a Sunnyvale company founded by an engineer who used to work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. PPH's full governing board would ultimately have to sign off on any proposed lease.

A fuel cell uses a chemical process to strip electrons from hydrogen atoms, creating electricity, heat, water and carbon dioxide as byproducts.

Fuel cells are generally seen as a green technology because they produce less carbon dioxide than would be released by burning a fuel like natural gas.

Hamilton told hospital directors Monday that installing the cells at each hospital could help PPH save $47 million on its energy bill over the next 20 years.

Over that time span, the public hospital district would pay about $34 million to Bloom Energy to lease the company's fuel cells, a cost that translates to about 8.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

Hamilton said PPH is paying about 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour, but that number is expected to increase about 6 percent per year.

NASA has been using the technology to power spacecraft, from the capsules of the Apollo missions to its recently decommissioned space shuttle orbiters, for decades.

Until recently, the technology has been too expensive for widespread utility use because fuel-cell chemistry required expensive materials like platinum to function.

However, companies like Bloom Energy have found ways to design fuel cells using ceramic particles that do not require such pricey rare metals.

According to Bloom Energy, large companies such as Walmart and the California Institute of Technology, are already using its fuel cells to supplement more traditional means of keeping the lights on.

Source: Paul Sisson, Escondido