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A proposal to future energy supplies: Your Personal Power Provider (3P+)
Virtual Power Plants with Direct Solar Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
First released by Arno A. Evers FAIR-PR at:
2008 Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition Phoenix, AZ, USA, 27 - 31 October 2008
Please open the print version for a closer view (pdf).
Virtual Power Plants
with Direct Solar Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
General Energy Overview
Today's Energy Balance, especially the production and distribution of electricity, is rather uneconomical worldwide, creating high flaring and transmission losses as each power plant has not only a bad efficiency itself but also need large transmission networks. One example are the transformer substations placed all over the countries (the photo on the top left shows a transformer substation in Palermo / Italy) and which are used for switching the current supply from high to low voltage for domestic and commercial use. Despite high average efficiencies (up to 99 percent), transformers continuously consume electricity which can sum up to almost one-third of the overall system losses.
This situation can only be overcome by fundamental changes: converting to a decentralized energy system, harvesting all renewable energies. Such a new system would be the implementation of Personal Power Providers (3P+), scalable from mW to MW, which can be used as collection and storage devices for hydrogen, utilizing fuel cells to produce electricity, heat and domestic water.
At the moment, 1.7 billion people of the world’s population does not have access to electricity and almost all of them live in rural areas of developing countries. The photo on the bottom left shows people living next to the Ahmedabad - Mumbai railway track in India.
As stated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), more than half of the world's human population, or 3.3 billion people, is currently living in urban areas and the number is expected to swell to almost 5 billion by 2030, with towns and cities of developing countries making up 81 percent of urban humanity. Present scenarios can be seen on the two photos on top of the poster which show the living situation in Shanghai, PR China and Jodhpur, India. Is there anyone out there in the Western World, who can imagine living there?
Current Hydrogen Production
Today's production of hydrogen, its distribution, storage and utilization are dependent upon conventional technologies, which are not commercial feasible at this time. All known technologies produce "black hydrogen" based on fossil fuels, rather than "green hydrogen" via direct solar energy. The most common processes are the reformation of natural gas, gasification of coal and partial oxidation of heavy crude oil in steam reformers. Hydrogen is also made in electrolysers, using electricity and thus produced with low efficiencies in coal, gas or nuclear power plants. At present, no hydrogen is actually being used by the end consumer.
Future Hydrogen Developments
The ultimate target for future hydrogen production must be, to use all existing renewable energies (as shown in the photo above where different renewable energy sources are utilized to generate electricity for a remote holiday home in Western Australia) to produce hydrogen directly with only one conversion step. A combination of new photobiological and photoelectrochemical processes has to be developed. Collected and stored in Personal Power Providers (3P+), the hydrogen is further utilized in fuel cells to meet all personal power demands for electricity, transportation, heat and water simultaneously. Downscaled by nanotechnologies, it can be implemented into the daily life as Virtual Power Plants. The Personal Power Providers (3P+) can be installed in family houses, small enterprises, public facilities and small villages where they form a cluster of decentralised energy systems. They could also be carried on the body so that electrical equipment can be recharged at any time or they can be used to supply remote buildings worldwide as the one in the photo above: a house in Austria. As a result, the Personal Power Providers (3P+) are the key for decentralised, personalized mass-markets.
Virtual power plants can produce power with very high efficiency. They can be used for electrification, transport and convenience in any city of the world, either a small town in Belgium or the biggest cities in P.R. China (the photo on the top right shows Shanghai where the urban population leaped to around 15 million in recent years) and thus can be one of the most important energy source in the future. The user and the producer of energy must become one in the same!
Change of Perspective Needed
A new, global perspective regarding the production, distribution and use of energy is unavoidable and has to come soon. Scientists, designers, engineers, craftsmen and also people in education, administration, media and governmental positions, including politicians, - but also the final consumers - must be able to identify and overcome the obstacles in the
efficiency of our existing electricity system. This will lead to the future: The Implementation of hydrogen and fuel cells into a worldwide, but personalized market – available for all.
The overall efficiency of such new, distributed Power Supplies is far better than all of today's existing energy systems! Personal Power to the People!
Conclusion towards the Hydrogen Society
In order to create a sustainable hydrogen society, hydrogen has to become a common commodity: Produced from all "real renewable" primary energy sources and used in Personal Power Providers (3P+), free of pollution and losses at the point of end-use. Hydrogen must be traded locally, based on supply and demand and used for electrification, transportation, heating/cooling and convenience. The advantages of fuel cells - emission free production of electricity by a chemical processes, not by combustion - should be utilized in connecting new markets also for domestic water. Together with truly "green hydrogen," fuel cells can be used as decentralised, personal power systems in order to power our daily lives. Even for new, today unknown applications.
Arno A. Evers FAIR-PR
Achheimstr. 3
82319 Starnberg
Germany
tel.: +49 (0) 8151 998923
e-mail: arno@hydrogenambassadors.com
web: https://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/
latest update: 22. Oktober 2008
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