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Hydrogen at home
The most important stationary application of fuel cells and hydrogen is the co-generation
of electric power and heat in a fuel cell heating and power station. The advantage of making use of both products - electric power and heat - is the very high overall
system efficiency thus making the best possible use of the primary energy sources.
Such cogeneration fuel cell power stations can be realised even in very small construction
sizes. Most common will be systems having the size of regular residential heating systems or of gas heating boilers. When these systems were produced in large numbers
they would be only slightly more expensive than conventional heating boilers but in addition they are "incidentally" generating electric power!
One can imagine how our energy system would change if millions of such plants were installed directly in residential buildings. The generation of electric power
would become decentralised and we would use the primary energy sources more efficiently.
In Europe only a very small part of all power stations uses the "waste heat" of the
power generation for heating purposes. Conversely heating installations burn oil and gas without generating electric power.
Even if in the beginning the fuel cell is to be operated together with a reformer which converts natural gas (i.e. a fossil fuel) the overall energy consumption and therefore the greenhouse gas emissions would decrease considerably.
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