Finland pilots waste hydrogen power plant
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a pilot-scale power plant based on fuel cells that utilise hydrogen generated as a by-product of the process industry.
The power plant, which has been in operation at Kemira Chemicals’ site in Finland since January 2014, produces electricity from hydrogen generated as a by-product of a sodium chlorate process and is the first of its kind in the Nordic Countries.
According to VTT, when scaled into commercial size, the equipment enables the reduction of energy consumption of the electrolysis process used for sodium chlorate production by 10–20 per cent.
The electric power of the pilot plant is approximately 50kW, whilst the total electrical efficiency of the system, including the fuel utilisation ratio and the power losses due to auxiliary equipment and power electronics, is approximately 44 per cent. VTT further claims that the fuel cell operates at an electrical efficiency of 54 per cent.
Currently, the low-temperature fuel cell at the Kemira Chemicals site - which annually consumes around 578GWh of electricity - operates at approximately 60°C. In the future, utilisation of the waste heat produced by the system is expected to improve as advances are made in the development of fuel cell materials.
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