Fuel Cell Advantages

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Advantages of Fuel Cells 1. Near-to- Zero Emissions: Fuel Cells operating purely on hydrogen have zero emission levels. Some of the fuel cells which utilize natural gas or other hydrocarbons as a source of hydrogen emit few emissions but even those are very low as compared to the emission levels of conventional power plants. Thus fuel cells bring a decrement in the already existing pollution. 2. High Efficiency: Since fuel cells operate electrochemically and they do not burn the fuel in order to produce energy, they have higher efficiency compared to conventional power generation methods which mainly work on the principles of combustion. Because there are always energy losses in terms of heat in the process of combustion. So with higher energy…show more content…
Scalability: Pertaining to the power needs, the fuel cells can be scaled since they are modular. So higher power consumption needs could also be met with the fuel cells as they only have to be linked together while the lower energy demands could be met with individual modules itself. 5. Reliability: Fuel cells are highly reliable sources of energy as they are capable of providing uninterrupted power supply thus catering to the energy demands whenever necessary. Fuel cells already provide the backup power in few of the existing power generation systems. But they have the capability of being configured as the primary power source of a facility. 6. Silent operation: Since fuel cells function on the principles of electrochemical reactions, there is no involvement of either combustion or any moving parts which are the primary sources of emanating noise, thus they are a whole lot silent while operating when compared to most of the conventional technologies. An average fuel cell system generates the noise as much as a normal conversation, which is far less than causing discomfort tot the…show more content…
Exceedingly High Costs: The manufacturing cost of the fuel cells is quite high pertaining to the need for a catalyst, preferably platinum which is a very expensive metal. A viable replacement has still not been found in order to bring down the cost of fuel cell production. 2. Improving the output efficiency: Fuel cells no doubt are a whole lot efficient than combustion based energy production methods, yet the amount of output being generated doesn’t make it a viable replacement for widely used technologies. Even with the aid of scaling the fuel cells, it might prove to be insufficient in order to satisfy the needs of energy consumption of a facility. 3. Extreme operating conditions: Few of the fuel cells do not have a favorable working condition pertaining to the need of the electrochemical reaction to take place such as very high operating temperature, large size of the fuel cell setup, limitation of the material choice, leakage of the liquid electrolyte etc. Thus it is extremely difficult to incorporate the existing fuel cell technology in other power generation facilities.
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