Leading Fuel Cell Technologies: Applications, costs, economic competitiveness and future prospects

Leading Fuel Cell Technologies

Maximizing returns from new technologies

Report Overview

Fuel cell products, despite considerable development, have yet to be commercially realized. However, developments in recent years have brought a range of new fuel cell technologies to the brink of commercialization. Fuel cells could help to revolutionize power generation and may eventually provide electrical power for an extremely wide range of applications including utility power plants distributed generation, domestic combined heat and power units, and portable and automotive applications.

‘Leading Fuel Cell Technologies’ is a report published by Business Insights that analyzes the future of fuel cell technologies and their usage in stationary power generation. This report looks at each of the leading fuel cell technologies in terms of their operational characteristics, costs, efficiency and future prospects and provides an analysis of comparative costs with existing power generation technologies. The report also provides an assessment of the comercialization potential of fuel cells, in addition to key installation data and emerging fuel cell trials.             

Key Findings

Costs for stationary fuel cell applications still vary widely – from $2,500/kW for some technologies to more than $40,000/kW for direct methanol fuel cells.

Although fuel cell costs are still uncompetitive, the sector is still highly mature – revenues from commercial fuel cell companies were still under $500m 3 years ago although other estimates place the overall market size much higher.

Commercial fuel cell installations have risen sharply – more capacity has been installed in the past 3 years than in the 10 years prior to that.

Based on generation costs, fuel cells are becoming competitive with onshore wind and may be as little as 17% more expensive in some cases per MWh.

Fuel cell installations under 10kW have also grown quickly – at a CAGR of almost 50% between 2001 and 2007.             

Use this report to...

• Identify the leading fuel cell technologies, their development status and application with this report’s in–depth analysis of the 6 leading fuel cell technologies:
  
  • Phosphoric acid fuel cells
  • Proton exchange membrane fuel cells
  • Molten carbonate fuel cells
  • Solid oxide fuel cells
  • Alkaline fuel cells
  • Direct methanol fuel cells
• Compare the economic competitiveness of the different fuel cell technologies with this report’s comparative analysis of costs against existing power generation technologies.
• Assess the long term potential of fuel cells in the stationary power market based on this report’s assessment of the future prospects of fuel cells, their commercialization prospects, key installation data and emerging fuel cell trials.         

Explore issues including...

Cost competitiveness. Fuel cells are becoming more cost competitive, although costs for many of the technologies remain estimates and the true challenge for commercialization of fuel cells remains to be fully understood.

Technological immaturity. Fuel cells are still a highly immature technology, with relatively low, but growing levels of installation – and it is clear that a key feature of their uptake will be an ability to achieve scale.

The hydrogen economy. In the uncertain event that a hydrogen economy does develop, then the fuel cell is likely to become one of the primary means of exploiting hydrogen. The availability of hydrogen without the need for reforming would have a significant effect on the economics of several types of fuel cell.          

Discover...

• What are the leading fuel cell technologies?
• Which technology is suited to which application?
• What are the operational parameters for each technology?
• How do the economics of fuel cell technologies compare against one another and against existing power generation technologies?
• What is the growth profile for large and small fuel cell installations?
• What are the future prospects for fuel cell commercialization?

Table of Contents

• Leading Fuel Cell Technologies

Executive summary 10

• Introduction 10
• Fuel cell basics 10
• Phosphoric acid fuel cells 11
• Proton exchange membrane fuel cells 11
• Molten carbonate fuel cells 12
• Solid oxide fuel cells 13
• Alkaline fuel cells 13
• The direct methanol fuel cell 14
• The cost of fuel cells 14
• The future of fuel cells 15

Chapter 1 Introduction 18

• Introduction 18
• The history of fuel cells 19
• The structure of this report 20

Chapter 2 Fuel cell technology 24

• Introduction 24
• How a fuel cell works 25
• Catalysts 27
• Efficiency 28
• Types of fuel cell 30
• The alkaline fuel cell 31
• The phosphoric acid fuel cell 32
• The proton exchange membrane fuel cell 33
• The molten carbonate fuel cell 34
• The solid oxide fuel cell 35
• The direct methanol fuel cell 36
• Fuel and fuel processing 37
• The hydrogen economy 38
• Distributed generation 39
• Environmental benefits 40

Chapter 3 Phosphoric acid fuel cells 44

• Introduction 44
• PAFC cell technology 45
• Fuel processing 49
• Commercial PAFC units 50
• Applications for PAFC fuel cells 54
• Costs of PAFC fuel cells 55
• PAFC prospects 55

Chapter 4 Proton exchange membrane fuel cells 58

• Introduction 58
• PEM cell technology 59
• Fuel processing 65
• Commercial PEM fuel cells 67
• Applications 70
• Cost of PEM fuel cells 71
• Future prospects 72

Chapter 5 Molten carbonate fuel cells 74

• Introduction 74
• MCFC technology 76
• Fuel processing 80
• Commercial molten carbonate fuel cells 81
• Applications 84
• Cost of MCFC fuel cells 85
• Future prospects 87

Chapter 6 Solid oxide acid fuel cells 90

• Introduction 90
• SOFC technology 91
• Fuel processing 95
• Fuel cell-turbine hybrids 96
• Commercial SOFC developments 97
• Applications 101
• The cost of SOFC fuel cells 102
• Future prospects 103

Chapter 7 Alkaline fuel cells 106

• Introduction 106
• Alkaline fuel cell technology 107
• Fuel processing 110
• Commercial AFC units 111
• Applications 112
• Costs 113
• Future prospects 113

Chapter 8 The direct methanol fuel cell 116

• Introduction 116
• DMFC technology 117
• Commercial DMFC fuel cells 121
• Applications 121
• Costs 122
• Future prospects 123

Chapter 9 The cost of fuel cells 126

• Introduction 126
• Costs for stationary applications 126
• Cost comparisons and other data 130
• Fuel cell cost targets 135
• Chapter 10 The future of fuel cells 138
• Introduction 138
• Stationary fuel cell market 140
• Other fuel cell markets 146
• Fuel cell prospects 148

List of Figures

• Figure 5.1: MCFC fuel cell costs and cost reductions ($/kW), 1996-2006 86
• Figure 9.2: The cost of fuel cells for stationary applications ($/kW) 128
• Figure 9.3: Cost comparison with other generation technologies, ($/kW) 132
• Figure 9.4: Comparison of generation costs for different technologies ($/MWh) 134
• Figure 10.5: Annual large stationary fuel cell installations (over 10kW) 141
• Figure 10.6: Forecast large stationary fuel cell sales (number of units, cumulative capacity in MW), 2008-2009 142
• Figure 10.7: Annual small stationary fuel cell shipments (under 10kW), (Number of units shipped), 2001-2007 144

List of Tables

• Table 2.1: Fuel cell characteristics 30
• Table 2.2: Typical Fuel Cell Power Plant Emissions (ppm) 40
• Table 3.3: Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell Characteristics 47
• Table 3.4: Operating parameters for PC25C fuel cell 51
• Table 3.5: PC25C emissions 52
• Table 4.6: Proton exchange membrane fuel cell characteristics 63
• Table 4.7: Ballard Power Systems 250kW fuel cell prototype specification 67
• Table 4.8: Plug Power residential fuel cell specification 69
• Table 5.9: Molten carbonate fuel cell characteristics 78
• Table 5.10: FuelCell Energy prototype MCFC stack 82
• Table 5.11: MCFC fuel cell costs and cost reductions ($/kW), 1996-2006 85
• Table 6.12: Solid oxide fuel cell characteristics 93
• Table 6.13: Westervoort 100kW pilot plant 98
• Table 7.14: Alkaline fuel cell characteristics 109
• Table 8.15: Direct methanol fuel cell characteristics 119
• Table 9.16: The cost of fuel cells for stationary applications ($/kW) 127
• Table 9.17: California Energy Commission generation cost estimates for fuel cells ($/kW, $/MWh) 130
• Table 9.18: Cost comparison with other generation technologies, ($/kW) 131
• Table 9.19: Comparison of generation costs for different technologies ($/MWh) 133
• Table 10.20: Annual large stationary fuel cell installations (over 10kW) 140
• Table 10.21: Forecast large stationary fuel cell sales (number of units, cumulative capacity in MW), 2008-2009 142
• Table 10.22: Annual small stationary fuel cell shipments (under 10kW), (Number of units shipped), 2001-2007 144