Home Energy Station

Honda has built a solar-powered hydrogen station to refuel its FCX fuel cell fleet. Honda has also been testing a Home Energy Station that extracts hydrogen from natural gas, while generating electricity and hot water for home use. But, natural gas jumped from about 5/thousand cubic feet in 1999 to almost 12 in 2006. 

Figure 5.11. Honda Home Energy Station (HES D). (Source Honda Worldwide, 2005d).

The main drawback of any of these vehicles is the lack of hydrogen infrastructure. The potential here would be to provide a fuel at home solution called the Home Energy Station, but this has not yet happened. A home appliance that produces hydrogen from natural gas has been proposed. Though expensive, it could also be used to supply home heating, electricity, and hot water. 

The problems have been further complicated by the energy crisis itself, almost in a vicious circle. One great result of the oil energy crisis is that the world learned to live with less oil less oil for home heating or central heating, less oil for cars and other motor vehicles, less fuel oil for boilers or large thermal power stations, etc. That resulted in a large... 

Comment. Modern wind turbines produce electricity 70-85% of the time, but they generate different outputs depending on the wind speed. Over the course of a year, a turbine will typically generate about 30% of the theoretical maximum output this is known as its load factor. The load factor of conventional power stations is on average 50% (DTI, 2004). A modern wind turbine will generate enough energy to meet the electricity demands of more than 1000 homes over the course of a year. 

CHP is an optimal way of utihzing fuel. In a traditional central power station, only about 35-45% of the primary energy is transformed to electrical power, while the remaining is waste heat which is not used. In a CHP plant, the heat is not wasted but used as steam or hot water to provide heat to homes, buildings, or industry. This requires a heat network, and consequently, CHP solutions are primarily implemented as small decentral units situated together with hospitals, hotels, airports, etc., where the heat can be consumed on site. 

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