Mar 5 2008
UTC Power, a United Technologies Corp. company, announced today that its PureCell(R) Model 200 stationary fuel cell system at St. Agnes Hospital in Bocholt, Germany, has attained a major milestone: 10 million kilowatt-hours of generated power and more than 52,000 operating hours with its original fuel cell stack. The stack is the heart of any fuel cell power unit and key to its durability.
St. Agnes Hospital, with close to 500 beds, has been an early adopter of new, environmentally responsible energy solutions. It installed the fuel cell in 2000 to meet increased demand for on-site power due to new medical equipment. The fuel cell provides the hospital with baseload electric power, heating in winter and air conditioning in summer as well as domestic hot water. The availability of the fuel cell has been as high as 97 percent in most years.
Fuel cells are one of the cleanest power sources available today, producing electricity without combustion. They operate at much higher efficiencies than internal combustion engines, extracting more electricity from the same amount of fuel. In addition, they operate quietly and can be configured to provide electricity when the local power grid fails.
UTC Power has installed more than 260 stationary fuel cell power plants for customers in 19 countries on five continents and its fleet has accumulated more than 8 million hours of field operation. The current UTC Power PureCell unit produces 200 kilowatts of electric power plus about 870,000 Btu/hour of heat for combined heat and power applications.
The company is now finalizing development of its next-generation phosphoric acid fuel cell system for commercial on-site power applications. It will have a 20-year operating life and provide 400 kilowatts of power and more than 1.6 million Btu/hr of thermal output -- twice the power and heat output of the company's current model.
"For on-site power applications, the UTC Power PureCell system is the demonstrated leader in durability," said Jan van Dokkum, UTC Power president. "No other firm has come close to matching our 8 million-plus hours of stationary fuel cell fleet operation."