I was with someone today who is emerging as a leading UK light on the subject of fuel cells and their use in standby power applications. He surprised us all by bringing to the meeting the smallest fuel cell application we have seen so far - a racing car that retails for £59.95

This was a wonderful demonstration of the concept, providing proof of its viability in a relatively simple, low-cost executive toy. For uninterruptible power supply manufacturers like Riello UPS, it is only a matter of time before fuel cells are included in our portfolio as viable alternatives to diesel and LPG generated standby power.

Are they that viable I here you ask ? Well they are getting there is the answer. When compared to a diesel generator installation there are several benefits aside from a minute environmental impact in terms of heat output when delivering power. Fuel cells are virtually silent in operation (they have a slight ‘humming’ sound when active) with relatively low maintenance and operating costs. Installation is really no more complicated than an air conditioning or generator system in reality, even if one takes into account the storage on-site of their fuel - hydrogen gas - which is supplied in pressured containers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy, Power Protection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.