Fuel Cell Cost Considerations and Market Development

4 Fuel Cell Cost Considerations and Market Development 

As a potential new product, the cost of ownership and operation will be critical for fuel-cell commercialisation. This total cost can be split down to fuel and other operating costs and the initial capital cost. The main component of the initial cost is the manufacturing cost, which is strongly related to the production volume and the incorporation of economies of scale (Lipman et al., 2004 Hawkes et al., 2005 Alanne etal., 2006 Williams et al., 2004). 

The manufacturing cost of a PEM fuel-cell stack includes the individual costs of the membrane, the electrodes, the platinum catalyst, the bipolar plates, the 

The main differences in high-temperature fuel-cell stack cost structure relate to the fact that they do not contain high-cost precious metals, on the one hand, and that they demand more complex manufacturing process, on the other. It must be noticed therefore, that, the fuel-cell stack is, in many cases, responsible for less than one third of the total capital cost of a fuel-cell system, and that a large portion of the total cost is caused by fuel pretreatment (reforming, cleaning etc.), plant control, and power conditioning. For small-scale SOFC systems, the cost of the stack is of the order of 40-45% of the total cost. 

This cost structure could very well be valid for PEMFC systems, although for high-temperature stacks, insulation can be an important factor, especially for low nominal power outputs (US DOE, 2002). 

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