Industrial & Commercial Heating 2 Fuel cells
involved in the transportation and filling of gaseous or liquid hydrogen. ‘Moreover a large investment in infrastructure would
be required to fuel vehicles and energy plant.’ Despite this, Spires does believe that fuel cell
technology in itself has real potential, because it can ‘process energy in a cleaner and more efficient way by using more of the stored energy of the fuel in generating electricity than traditional combustion reaction generators’. Sarah Royse at consultancy Inbuilt adds: ‘There are
The fuel cell is located in a pod-like room on the ground floor of Palestra
>
at street level, with the fuel cell CHP as its focus, fitted perfectly with TfL’s remit to share the buildings sustainability credentials and design with the public, says Stanton. The fact that the fuel cell weighs around 22 tonnes
also made locating the unit at ground-floor level, rather than hoisting it to the roof, a more attractive proposition. The system is capable of providing 200kWe and
approximately 263kWth energy to the building services installations, operating at a system efficiency of 36%. It is anticipated the figure will reduce over the life of the equipment.
Pros and cons Phil Jones, chairman, of the CIBSE CHP Group, says that, despite some concerns over their high capital cost, fuel cells may present one of the transition technologies to the hydrogen economy: ‘Fuel cells could be the way forward for CHP in buildings and it’s great to see
There are still many unanswered
questions regarding hydrogen fuel cells – the TfL installation will provide invaluable evidence – Sarah Royse
TfL taking a lead in demonstrating this cutting-edge technology,’ he commented. ‘Fuel cells have relatively high efficiencies, good
heat-to-power ratios, no moving parts and they are noise-free. Importantly, fuel cells can be fired on a wide range of fuels. In my view it’s probably one of the most important technologies for providing heat, cooling and power in buildings in the future.’ However, Brian Spires of HLM Architects says
hydrogen fuel cells for buildings have their practical problems: ‘The drawbacks of hydrogen are numerous. It has low energy content per unit volume, high tankage weights, issues with storage, and there are difficulties
60 CIBSE Journal October 2010
still many unanswered questions regarding hydrogen fuel cells – not only the energy conversion and thermodynamic implications related to the fuel cell operation, but also how the hydrogen is derived and the losses associated with its storage and distribution. The jury is still out – the TfL installation will provide invaluable evidence.’ In fact, the fuel cell system was fitted with
independent metering to monitor not only electrical energy delivered to the building and gas consumption, but also heat rejected by the system, providing a complete ‘picture’ of the system performance – which is vital to measuring performance with the CHPQa scheme (see box below). The system is being monitored by building
maintenance staff. Stanton says that TfL hopes to have comprehensive data available on the performance of the fuel some time in the future, ‘once all metering is in place and a truly representative spread of consumption relating to building occupation is available’. l
CHP Quality assurance
When Transport for London (TfL) acquired the head lease of Palestra and nine floors of the building, its brief to the design team was to take the BREEAM rating from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Excellent’. As part of that, the team had to install a significant trigeneration system, not only to reduce running costs during the lease period, but also to meet specific Mayoral targets for Greater London Authority buildings in particular. Detailed feasibility and viability studies used by
Transport for London suggested that a combined heat and power (CHP) system, thermal storage and an absorption chiller installed in the building could meet a significant proportion of the building’s electricity, heating and cooling needs, as well as significantly reducing energy cost and carbon emissions. A key part of the brief was a requirement of the
trigeneration scheme to meet the quality assurance scheme (CHPQa) standard to ensure a minimum, audited level of performance and efficiency. The initial phase of this certification has been completed, resulting in a rebate of the climate change levy on gas used in the building’s CHP systems, says Andy Stanton of TfL.
www.cibsejournal.com
Pinniger and Partner Lighting Design
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