I believe that mjshackl is close to the mark. The point is to generate power close to where it is required so that the waste heat can be captured to heat hot water for local applications.
From what I have read the CFCL fuel cell appears to have a relatively slow response time, so if it is connected to only one household and that household pops out to do some shopping, or even perhaps go fishing, then electricty would still be produced but not productively "consumed", and may even have to be dumped somehow and the fuel cell shut down in emergency mode.
As Brendan Dow has stated previously, once CFU starts making money from the natural gas applications then they will start looking at other fuels such as LPG.
At that point remote communities of more than one household would possibly be ok, say Australian Antarctic bases. Last time I looked their major power source was from Cat diesel gensets with all fuel shipped in from Australia and they already recover some of the waste heat from the gensets to heat the buildings.
So if the energy density of LPG as a liquid is equal to or higher than that of diesel then it could be a winner (and cleaner and quieter). Only problem is that the Australian Antarctic Division only has three permanent bases on the Antarctic continent (and sort of one on Maquare Island). So not much of a money spinner.
Cheers
U.Plodder
CFU Price at posting:
13.2¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
