Adroit Market Research - Industry Insights

Life cycle as well as economic modelling (cost efficacy) for a fuel cell technology as compared to an alternative technology noticeably depends upon a variety of factors that includes:

• Price of the Fuel Cell System as well as lifespan of system.
• The fuel, capital along with maintenance cost of the alternatives that might differ for different sites, regions, also time especially in terms of diesel prices.
• The electrical capacity, usage in terms of hours/day as well as expediency of the site.
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Life cycle as well as economic modelling (cost efficacy) for a fuel cell technology as compared to an alternative technology noticeably depends upon a variety of factors that includes:

• Price of the Fuel Cell System as well as lifespan of system.
• The fuel, capital along with maintenance cost of the alternatives that might differ for different sites, regions, also time especially in terms of diesel prices.
• The electrical capacity, usage in terms of hours/day as well as expediency of the site.
• Furthermore, manufacturing cost of hydrogen at situate either via restructuring Natural Gas/Methanol/ Biomass /LPG or water electrolysis or else Supplied Cost of hydrogen at situate from a neighboring source, for instance electrolyser or large-scale reorganizer or Chlor-Alkali Plant
• Fuel Cell Stack lifespan and replacement cost on the basis of system runtime & on-off cycles.

Productivity of Fuel cell power

Regular fuel cell systems directed at telecoms are in approximately 1.5kW- 10 kW range. Besides, there has been nothing important averting greater power systems, manifold fuel cell modules of lesser capacity that could be cascaded in order to match power as well as size arrangement of a telecoms site.

Capital & fuel costs of Fuel Cell Technology

Assessing the strategy of dealers along with the volumes of may perhaps significantly influence price, thus costs of these are continuously changing. Fuel cell stack costs could be deliberated proportional to the power productivity at approximately US$600-$800/kW. Costs of entire systems consistently lessen for a greater power systems, nevertheless a revealing existing estimation is approx. US$3,000 to US$4,000/kW. Hence, cost of cost 5KW system might range somewhere close to US$15,000 to US$20,000 fitted. However, bigger systems will probably be moderately economical by almost 20 percent in terms of per kW basis since the systems integration along with the auxiliaries’ fixed cost does not surge in a lined technique. The category of system & the fuel it is running over influences the cost, through more compound reformer constructed systems having more cost.

Costs of Maintenances of Fuel Cell Systems

Apart from the price of fuel, maintenance as well as replacement costs could considerably be lesser than that for diesel or even battery systems. Preventive maintenance cost at hourly basis is in the order of approximately US$0.01/hour of usage.

Maintenance of fuel cell systems usually comprises of filter replacements at every 500 hours of usage, plus replacement of fuel cell stacks (nearly US$3k to US$3.5k) as soon as they reach towards the end of their warranted life, after the usage of almost 10,000 hours. These could positively be compared to a certain amount of maintenance costs for running approximately 15kVA diesel generator (i.e. almost US$300 per month overall maintenance, annually overhaul of about US$4K/year as well as replacement of about US$8.5K for every 4 overhauls or else 20,000 hours of maximum life optimization Model for Electric Renewables), established in the Unite States by National Renewable Energy Laboratory & are assessable for free downloads. One of the key purpose of this was to measure how the economic capability of fuel cell systems over the span of ten-year mission life depended upon several other factors, for instance grid availability or even price of the diesel. Also, the simulations had been designed in order to draw overall conclusions regarding the kind of sites that is utmost suited for the fuel cell systems instead of being enhanced for a specific site. Fuel cell sellers as well as energy system integrators might perhaps be able to offer business cases that are personalized to specific regions & site specifications.

General assumptions of simulations are as follows:

• Fuel cell systems are very much probable to replace diesel generators instead of batteries in terms of cost alone.
• Price of refueling are higher than the obstacle costs of the fuel cell systems.
• Reformer as well as electrolyser constructed fuel cells systems are very much cost efficient than supplying bottled hydrogen, till more extensive hydrogen supply chains exist in place.
• Fuel cell systems are best suited for the sites where lower power is required.
• Evaluations specify that the diminutions in the emissions of carbon dioxide by almost 50% to 80% as compared to might be attainable for site of approximately 1kW.

Outcomes for the off-grid sites in terms of 24hr usage on daily basis

• As long as hydrogen can cheaply be sourced as well as delivered, direct hydrogen fuel cell systems provide utmost prospective for cost savings.
• Reformer systems presently that are under development could be inexpensive than the diesel, delivering carbon diminutions as well as reduced maintenance.
• Electrolyser along with the hydrogen store has not been found to be cost-effective mode of stowing energy for the renewable hybrid systems in the simulation completed for this study. The small round-trip efficacy necessitates over-requiring solar panels, disavowing the advantages of hydrogen over the batteries
• Existing fuel cell systems are revealed to be lesser inexpensive as compared to the diesel as well as battery hybrid solutions.