Clean Power (Pvt.) Limited

The Fuel Cell Applications

Introduction to Fuel Cell

Fuel Cell, although invented more than 150 years age by Sir William Groove in 1839, have only now emerged as the most promising technology to satisfy ever-growing energy needs of today’s world. It is expected that fuel cell will play the major role in power market at every level from stationary power generation to portable power, from powering spacecrafts to cars.

Fuel cell is an electrochemical device that converts chemical energy of Hydrogen reacting with Oxygen into electricity (direct current). This is an exothermal process and hence produces some heat. The only by product of this reaction is non-toxic drinkable water. Fuel cell car are similar to batteries in the sense that both reduce a direct current (DC) by means of an electrochemical process. Fuel cell requires continuous supply of Hydrogen and Oxygen for continuous electricity production. Atmospheric Oxygen is adequate for fuel cell operation, but Hydrogen needs to be supplied. Although Hydrogen does not exist freely in nature, it can be obtained from a large variety of sources such as natural gas, biogas, refined and reformed liquid fuels, alcohols, and land fill gas. Alternatively there are some fuel cell types which can be directly fed these fuels.

At the moment the biggest hurdle towards wide scale fuel cell implementation is initial cost which is averaging at US $ 4,000 / KW. However this cost is expected to drop exponentially in the coming years. The other problem facing fuel cell acceptance is the lack of infrastructure to provide Hydrogen. Efforts are underway to increase the availability of Hydrogen and decrease the costs associated with Hydrogen production and storage infrastructure.

Fuel cells at CPL

Clean Power (Pvt) Limited is working with Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB) Government of Pakistan since 2001 on fuel cell technologies. As a result of this cooperative effort three fuel cells (FC) have been imported in Pakistan and two fuel cell labs are in the process of being developments in Pakistan. This project is expected to play the foundations for any future fuel cell developments in Pakistan. The current workshop, namely: training workshop on Fuel cells is also the outcome of this joint effort between the AEDB & CPL.

At the moment CPL is uniquely positioned in Pakistan by being in the private sector and working on the fuel cell technologies. Today the basic technology of fuel cell is in place in different countries and can be made available from there for implementation purpose. In such a scenario CPL has imported equipment from Heliocentris Energies, Gmbh, Germany, a company that manufactures products of Ballard Inc., Canada.

CPL is focusing on developing indigenous capabilities in Pakistan for FC operation and maintenance for specific scenarios. CPL is striving to design and develop customized systems using FC based applications with a view to cost of fuel cell equipment is very high and technology is difficult to indigenize considering existing patents, thus the best way to counter the problem is developing the FC applications and maintenance capabilities locally.

One special scenario for which CPL is developing a feasibility is ‘electrification of remote villages though FC using capped natural gas wells.’ At the moment there are number of gas wells in Baluchistan which are capped and gas not utilized because worth of the gas in these wells is less than infrastructure of piping and distribution. At the same time, there are villages in the vicinity of these wells which are not privileged with electricity. CPL is designing systems to use the gas of these wells and electricity surrounding villages by fuel cells.
For such micro level systems designing and development of customized applications of FC, which are more viable than conventional alternatives, CPL looks forward to academia, specially engineering universities to join hand and take the lead.

CPL’s team developed the first working lab model of PEM fuel cell in Pakistan, way back in year 2001. From then onwards, CPL has researched on different system level technologies of using fuel cell.

CPL’s foreign partners in Fuel Cell projects

Heliocentric Energiesystem Gmbh, a German company, specialist in fuel cell training & academic strengthening is a partner of CPL for developing Fuel Cell Projects.

Training workshop on Fuel Cell

Together with Heliocentric, CPL organized a training workshop on fuel cell systems in January, 2006. Professional engineers from CPL & Heliocentric delivered lecturers during workshop, which was followed by practical training on 1.2 KW PEM fuel cells. Following personalities were presented during workshop sessions:Following personalities were presented during workshop sessions:

-Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman, Minister for Science & Technology
-Air Marshal Shahid Hamid, Chairman Alternative Energy Development Board
-Ejaz Rahim, Cabinet Secretary
-Dr. Ekhart Nauman, GTZ
-Brig. Dr. Nasim, Secretary / Member Technical, AEDB Board
-Senior Scientists of PINSTEK
-Senior Faculty members of NED University, Karachi
-Senior Faculty Members of UET, Lahore
-Senior Faculty Members of UET, Taxila

Development of Fuel Cell cart

CPL is developing a 1KW fuel cell cart. The concept is to change batteries from fuel cell & operate cart on the charge stored in the batteries. The Fuel Cell, hydrogen cylinder and batteries, all are integrated on the chassis.

Download Fuel Cell Cart Paper

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