Can fuel cells minimize power outage impacts?

Last week's power outage impacting Southern California, Arizona and Mexico demonstrated just how vulnerable the aging electric power grid is. In this case, with a simple human error, critical services like airports, train stations, sewage stations and police stations were forced to close or rely on expensive backup generators. Could continuous onsite power systems, such as fuel cells, have minimized the effect of the electricity grid going down?

While fuel cell technologies have existed for nearly two hundred years, it has only been over the last two decades that utilities have been researching and demonstrating their capabilities as an alternative energy source. When faced with situations like the recent power outage in Southern California, utilities can leverage continuous onsite power systems, such as fuel cells, to continue with business as usual.

Since they are not tied to the electricity grid and instead are powered by natural gas, continuous onsite power systems could have helped prevent some of the disruption, enabling businesses and homes to maintain power with little interruption, according to Ed Graham, Director Global Strategic Sales, ClearEdge Power.

"Today, fuel cell technologies and products are commercially viable, offering a compelling levelized cost of energy compared to existing grid infrastructure and a greener solution to help reduce carbon footprints," Graham told FierceEnergy.

There is currently significant political and societal pressure for utilities to re-evaluate the way they create and distribute energy.

"By adding new alternative choices to a short list of viable distributed energy resources, utilities and their customers can better meet political and environmental regulations that have been put in place to drive reform," Graham said.

Through easy-to-engage and creative financing programs, utilities can now offer their existing customer base alternative energy choices that can lower energy losses traditionally incurred during transmission, reduce energy production costs and minimize carbon emissions. These alternate energy choices also help utilities meet increased customer demand to proactively manage their own energy needs in more of a partnership.

"In today's digital age, customers are demanding a more collaborative approach with their service providers," said Graham. "This distributed generation, enabled by new technologies such as fuel cells, helps utilities retain and enhance their relationships with their client base."

There are several ways utilities can take advantage of this technology to expand their business and meet sustainability objectives that are both regulatory and bottom-line driven. First, utilities can sell the solution directly to their customers as a way to diversify their product offering. Second, utilities can use the technology to supplement the grid.

"It's more cost-effective to meet a region's demand increase with a distributed generation solution than it is to invest in building new central plants or transmission lines, which require a significant CAPEX investment and often includes a lengthy permitting process," Graham said.

Source: Barbara Vergetis Lundin, Fierce Energy