Natural gas-powered fuel cell power plant now online

FuelCell Energy (NasdaqNM: FCEL), a manufacturer of electric power plants for commercial and industrial customers, and Enbridge Inc. (NYSE: ENB), a Canadian company that operates the longest pipelines in the world, have announced production at the first multi-megawatt hybrid plant to generate clean electricity while recovering energy normally lost during natural gas pipeline operations.

FuelCell calls the new product the Direct FuelCell-Energy Recovery Generation (DFC-ERG) system. It combines a 1.2 megawatt FuelCell power plant with a 1 MW unfired gas expansion turbine. Operating at natural gas pipeline "letdown" stations, the system generates 2.2 megawatts (MW) of clean electricity.

To transport natural gas across the continent, natural gas pipelines operate at high pressures. Considerable energy must be injected to achieve the pressures required. This high pressure must be reduced when the gas enters lower pressure systems that deliver gas to homes and businesses. No commercial use is usually made of the energy lost at that stage.

Also, when pressure is reduced, the gas cools. While wasteful, this cooling is usually offset by burning some of the gas in boilers, reheating the supply to an acceptable temperature.

In the new DFC-ERG system, high-pressure gas passes through a turbine, capturing some of the energy that was otherwise lost and turns it into usable electricity. The integrated fuel cell also electrochemically converts some of the gas into low-impact, environmentally friendly electricity. Finally, heat generated by the fuel cell warms the gas to its proper distribution temperature - thus eliminating the boiler and its emissions. The combined system is low noise and produces virtually zero smog emissions, FuelCell says.

General availability of the hybrid power plant is expected to be in the third calendar quarter of 2007.

Enbridge says it has identified 40-60 MW of opportunities for the DFC-ERG system in just one of its operating areas. The North American market represents another 200-300 MW, consisting of the half dozen U.S. states currently seeking to add fuel cells’ environmental attributes to their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS).

Governments are making easier for companies like FuelCell. The state of Connecticut offers a ready made contract path with its Project 100 program, and the province of Ontario is soon to release its Clean-Energy Standard Offer Program. Both initiatives are geared toward embedding ultra-clean generation sources to deliver electricity directly to the grid.

FuelCell says its DFC-ERG is well-suited to these programs since the pipeline pressure reducing stations are inherently close to, or embedded within, urban centers - where the demand for clean electricity is the greatest.

Development of the DFC-ERG system took FuelCell more than a year, but opens up brand new markets for the company, it says.

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