Bord Gais and residential CHP

BendiBus

I note a report in the news this week that Bord Gais has signed a contract with Ceres Power of the UK, and will be placing an order for 16,000 residential CHP units.

From the Ceres Power website these units are based on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and are designed to replace existing domestic gas boilers.

Surprised it hasn't gotten a mention here. Being gas powered it can't be called renewable, but it has the potential to be extremely efficient and to reduce overall fossil fuel consumption. Not to mention contributing to the drive for fuel cell development (something which does get mentioned here a lot).

So, is such a story not green enough to merit a post here?

RTÉ report

Ceres Power Press Release (pdf)

hick

I'm working on a project where we're using these commercially, the are extremely interesting, We will be looking at providing 400Kw of power to a campus and thus removing the need for ESB except as a backup, the unit will also produce heat as a by product. The electrical efficiency isn't as high as you'd think but better than transmitting over the network

air

There was a similar product called the Whispergen in the UK which was a Stirling engine based unit.
The efficiency of the electrical generation isn't that important when there's a need for the heat on site anyway.
Even the best closed cycle gas power stations are only in the 60% efficiency range since there is no use on site for the heat that's lost.
These have the potential to be hugely efficient given that there's a use for the heat on site and there is no transmission losses as mentioned by hick.
The only downside is that for electrical generation purposes they wouldn't tend to be run by home owners during the summer (less requirement for the heat) but then there's a lower electrical demand at that time of year also!
I think the university of limerick sports arena has a gas CHP unit - the waste heat is used to provide heat for the 50m pool.

hick

no commercial ones in the country so far as I'm aware as there is a grant from the SEI for the first

Agree with all of the above, I suppose if the price point is low enough you could use it as a winter power/heat device and run off current systems during the summer. That's a big if though.

air

No commercial what's in the country?
There are certainly plenty commercial CHP plants I would think.
I guess a lot of the viability of this product will depend on any incentives / feed in tarriffs that may or may not be offered for the electricity production.