New Albertsons Supermarket to Use Clean Power from Fuel Cells

The new Albertsons supermarket in the San Diego community of Claremont California to be opened shortly has installed a 400 kW fuel cell manufactured by UTC Power an auxiliary company of United Technologies Corp to meet nearly 90% of its power requirement utilizing green energy.

The new 55,000 Sq.Ft. super market is planning to use fuel cell technology that combines hydrogen and oxygen in an electrochemical progression to produce electric power, required heat energy and water without utilizing fossil fuel. The noiseless and quite process meets all the current emission requirements. During the electrical power production process lot of heat is generated as a by product and this heat can be stored and used for warming water utilized in the supermarket, or to warm inside of the store during cold seasons or can be used to power a chiller to keep the refrigerated food cool. The technology can offer an over all energy efficiency of around 60% more than double the efficiency of the normal power grid. The store can function uninterrupted during power outages or disruption and maintain the food kept inside its refrigerators without spoiling.

The other environment friendly green energy features included the supermarket are:

• Use of LED lightings for its frozen food and dairy product doors to reduce energy consumption by 50 to 65%
• Installation of photo sensors to measure outside day light and adjust the electrical lighting requirements inside the building
• Use of night curtains during closure of store to seal the cool air within the cold cases to reduce the chances of spoilage and to reduce power consumption by 25%
• Water conserving fixtures in rest rooms and other places to reduce consumption of water by nearly 45%

The fuel cell technology utilized in the supermarket is estimated to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions by 478 metric tons every year and its reductions in nitrogen oxide emissions is estimated to be equal that of putting 82 cars off the road per year.