[LINK] Ceramic Fuel Cells

[David Lochrin]

On Monday 6 June 2011 09:18, Paul Brooks wrote:

> As I understand it, the unit runs pretty much constantly converting 
> gas to electricity. Excess power over the instantaneous demand of 
> the household can be exported to the grid, or wasted - presumably 
> the rate of gas input to the fuel-cell can be dialled back to reduce 
> gas usage if there isn't any benefit from the excess power generated.
> 
> The water heating is a byproduct of the electricity generation - 
> might as well use the rise in temperature of the fuel cell to heat 
> the water directly, than waste the heat and then use electricity to 
> drive an element to heat the water.

Yes, that's what I suspect.  But constantly running the fuel cell would heat an awful lot of hot water, and there are really good, well proven, long-lasting designs for solar heating of hot water which don't use any fossil fuel at all.

Maybe it would be justifiable on an industrial scale though, say in a hospital where a heat exchanger could be added for winter room heating too.

David