As one green power machine touched down in the Hill Tuesday, City Hall staffers worked behind-the-scenes to build another one downtown.
Students at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy got front-row seats Tuesday as a 400-kilowatt fuel cell landed at their school, prompting one energy official to call New Haven a “hotbed” of green energy.
The fuel cell will provide power to the Clemente school and the Hill Central School, which is currently being rebuilt. It is the first fuel cell to be installed at an elementary or middle school in Connecticut, officials said; Middletown and South Windsor have them at their high schools.
Mayor John DeStefano heralded the new fuel cell as a cleaner way to send energy to the new school at 360 Columbus Ave. Meanwhile, other City Hall staffers pursued a potential new project — building another fuel cell in the plaza behind City Hall.
Three … Two … One …
The city bought the fuel cell for $2.28 million from UTC Power, with the help of a $500,000 grant from the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.
UTC Power Vice President Mike Brown led students in a countdown to see the cell lowered, slowly, onto a concrete pad near the Clemente school’s parking lot around 11 a.m. Tuesday. (Click on the video at the top of the story to watch.)
The pre‑K to 8 school plans to use the new addition not just for power, but for science lessons.
The fuel cell will take in natural gas and extract hydrogen, creating 1.5 btus of thermal energy per hour, which will sent to a heating and cooling system connected to the school, Brown said. The 400-kilowatt cell will generate “more than enough electricity” to power both schools. No water is consumed or discharged during the process, which is one reason it’s considered to be “green.”
The fuel cell was paid for mostly by city bonds. Within 10 years, it will more than pay itself back in energy savings, with an expected $2 million in savings, according to schools Chief Operating Officer Will Clark.
The unit will take about six to eight weeks to power up. That means it will be powering students’ classroom lights by Thanksgiving. The school will stay on the grid, so that it can still get electricity in case of an emergency, but it will get all its power from the fuel cell, Brown said.
In public remarks, Brown pronounced New Haven a “hotbed” for fuel cells.
Rick Ross of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund agreed. Fuel cells have been around for 150 years, but the first commercially available fuel cell didn’t hit the market until 1992, he said. Since then, 300 commercial fuel cells have been put to use in 20 countries. Fuel cells like the one at Clemente are “helping the world transition to hydrogen,” and wean off of dirtier methods of energy production, he said.
While New Haven doesn’t have the most fuel cells in the state — Middletown and Bloomfield are ahead — it has been very busy of late, Ross noted.
The city’s first fuel cell was built in 2002 at the Water Pollution Control Authority. Yale recently built one at the Peabody Museum. Another one recently arrived at the downtown 360 State apartment tower. Then came the new one at Clemente.
“That’s a pretty good concentration of fuel cells.
City Hall Solution?
Now the city has been talking to the Clean Energy Fund about buying another fuel cell, officials revealed Tuesday.
After public remarks, City Hall staffer Giovanni Zinn took Ross aside and told him of the project.
Zinn, an environmental consultant at the city’s Office of Sustainability, has been working with consultants SourceOne to come up with a more efficient plan on how to heat and cool City Hall.
The city has long been engaged in a money-losing arrangement with the owners of the Chase Financial Center next door, to share heating and cooling services from a plant in the plaza behind City Hall.
Aldermen in 2008 gave the city an OK to spend $5 million to build a new city power plant in that spot. The plant was never built; instead, the city opted to extend its agreement with the Chase family until the end of 2013, according to Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts.
Smuts said the $5 million figure was based on a “more conventional plan.” The city is now zeroing in on a new solution — this time, involving a fuel cell.
Zinn and SourceOne settled on that solution as the most cost-effective and green way to heat and cool City Hall, Smuts said.
On Tuesday, Zinn took a moment to fill Ross in on the plan.
The tentative plan calls for installing a 400-kilowatt fuel cell behind City Hall. That would “reduce our reliance on conventional thermal sources” from the plant that’s shared with Chase. If a new fuel cell is built, it would meet 60 percent of City Hall’s heating needs and 30 percent of its chilling needs, Zinn said.
“We’re still in the early stages,” cautioned Zinn. Nothing has been put out to bid.
Smuts said the city would still use the existing heating and cooling plant for some of its power. It would have to renegotiate terms of the agreement with Chase.
“We’re reviewing our options,” Smuts said. “We don’t want to put Chase out if we can help it. A fuel cell option might be the win-win.”
“We’re excited about it,” Smuts said. “We think it works well for everybody. It looks like it’s the cheapest option, and also a very green option.”
There is an interesting (however 6 years old) study on economy of fuel cells usage by Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab (RAEL), Energy and Resources Group, University of California, - http://bit.ly/algqhl
This analysis shows that stationary PEM fuel cell systems can produce electricity at competitive rates at potential future installed capital costs of on the order of $1200/kW for small-scale residential settings (e.g. 5 kW) and $700/kW for larger scale (e.g. 250kW) settings.However, we find that fuel cell system economics for peak and baseload power generation are also sensitive to natural gas fuel cost and system durability and maintenance cost assumptions, and it is therefore important to assess system economics on a site-specific basis, including such factors as prevailing electricity and natural gas costs, system efficiency and durability, and additional costs for installation, permitting, and grid-connection.
In a nutshell - while reducing dependence on one supplier UI and electricity costs a fuel cell system creates dependence on natural gas supply and price and maintenance by UTC - the maker of the fuel cell. It's greener technology than traditional electricity generation but it's still not matching wind or solar generated energy.
I would love to see the cost analysis for all the New Haven based Fuel Cells installations following the methodology of the study linked here: http://bit.ly/algqhl - all the articles about those installations as well as local CT fuel cell maker's website (http://www.utcfuelcells.com/) do not provide ANY hard data allowing me to judge the economy of the solution.
Fuel cell system economics: comparing the costs of generating
power with stationary and motor vehicle PEM fuel cell systems
Timothy E. Lipman, Jennifer L. Edwards, Daniel M. Kammen*
Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab (RAEL), Energy and Resources Group, University of California,
4152 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA