FuelCell Energy Delivers One Billion Kilowatt Hours of Clean Energy
11 Jan 2012
FuelCell Energy today announced a significant milestone: one billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean and renewable electricity produced by Direct FuelCell® (DFC)® power plants since 2003 – enough to power more than 90,000 average size US homes for a year. There are more than 80 DFC plants at more than 50 locations globally.
When compared to the average US fossil fuel power plant, one billion kWh of fuel cell energy produced in highly efficient combined heat and power (CHP) mode:
- Eliminated the emission of approximately 8,600 tons of criteria pollutants, which is equivalent to removing more than 137,000 passenger vehicles from the road;
- Prevented the emission of approximately 644,600 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to removing more than 114,000 passenger vehicles from the road;
- Benefited public health and helped customers achieve sustainability goals by virtually eliminating pollutants including nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SOx) and particulate matter (soot).
Efficiency of up to 90% can be achieved when the DFC plant is configured in CHP mode and the heat is used by the customer. High efficiency reduces fuel costs and carbon emissions and producing both electricity and heat from the same unit of fuel can reduce the use of combustion based boilers for heating, further reducing costs and pollutants.
Fuel cells in distributed generation provide continuous power at the point of use, easing congestion of the transmission grid and enhancing power reliability. Customers include utilities that incrementally add power generation throughout their service network as well as municipal, industrial and government power users that value virtually emission-free, on-site power generation.
Image: Four 2.8 MW FuelCell Energy power plants providing power to the South Korean electric grid (FuelCell Energy, Inc.)
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