ABSTRACT
The electricity system of the future must produce and distribute reliable, affordable and clean electricity.
In the last decade, the number of small generators (usually in kW to MW range) that use renewable energy sources (such as wind and PV) or fossil fuels have grown significantly. Most of these generators are connected to the distribution network level and referred to as distributed generators (DG).
Fuel cell power plants are an ideal solution for DG applications. In particular, stationary fuel cells as distributed generation technology, produce power and heat at the site of consumption with immediate supply of energy, and have the potential to be one of the technologies for the future energy transition. Fuel cell for stationary applications promises significant benefits: high energy efficiencies (electrical efficiency of up to 60%, combined efficiency in cogeneration - combined heat and power generation CHP of more than 90%), low acoustic emissions, the ability to change electricity output levels to meet rapid fluctuations in electricity demand, low noise level and fast load following. These benefits make fuel cell technology ideally suited to enable integrated power networks and because of the low noise level it is easy to place fuel cells in urban areas. Moreover, from the environmental point of view, fuel cells can substantially reduce the CO2 emissions when compared to conventional fossil-based power plants. Depending on the fuel used and its source, fuel cells can virtually eliminate CO2 and other emissions like NOx or SOx.
This chapter describes fuel cells systems for stationary applications and examines their role, features and potentials for deployment and commercialization in specific market segments (residential, commercial, industrial and power generation, UPS). The work aims at providing, both a overview of stationary FC systems at the present time and trends in the comings years, is focused on several aspects such as plant configurations and lay-outs, efficiencies, type of feeding fuel as well as manufacturers, technological issues, capital and maintenance costs. Hybrid systems, based on the integration between fuel cells and other power generation systems such gas turbine power plant, have also been examined and their potentials have been investigated.
