(Toyota) Home-Use Fuel Cell Cogeneration Project

http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/9802

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) plans to provide, for the third year in a row, home-use fuel cell cogeneration units as part of a government project to verify the practical use of CO2-reducing stationary fuel cells.

The municipal-gas-fueled 1-kW home-use fuel cell cogeneration units—which generate electricity and capture waste heat for household heating—are to play a role in the continuing Large-Scale Stationary Fuel Cell Demonstration Project of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Twenty-four of the units will be provided to project participant Toho Gas Co., Ltd. (Toho), which will install them in homes in three central-Japan prefectures (Aichi, Gifu and Mie) to collect data toward commercialization. The government project, which was originally scheduled to conclude on March 31, 2008, is now expected to run until the end of March 2009.

TMC's home-use fuel cell cogeneration units run on a system—jointly developed with Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd.—consisting of a stationary fuel cell and a hot water storage tank. Recent improvements, such as a modified heat-recovery circuit, have boosted heat-recovery efficiency by roughly 20% (as measured by TMC) without any loss in power-generation efficiency. The result is a marked reduction in household primary-energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

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