Project description

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL PROSPECTS

The PVFC-SYS project is an innovative approach in the renewable energy field giving an alternative through the Fuel Cell/Electrolyser package to the use of conventional technologies when dealing with hybrid systems.

Such a substitution has several important impacts on the cost and operation of Renewable Energy based hybrid systems :
- the investment costs of these new components are going to evolve very quickly with target costs at a lower level than the ones showed by conventional technologies.
- the solar fraction of the system will be increased as the capture losses will be drastically decreased by the presence of the electrolyser. This component will allow to use in an optimal way the solar energy in excess supplying hydrogen to the fuel cell.
- A self production of fuel and a component lifetime expected to be higher than in the case of conventional systems will allow a reduction of the system operational costs.

The PVFC–SYS considers systems in the range of 5 – 10 kW adapted to the electricity supply of remote sites. A work package dealing with the system modularity will give the conditions in terms of system configuration to allow the range extension in the simplest and most economical way.

Two companies in the consortium can be considered as installers, one in PV/hybrid systems the other in fuel cell and electrolyser. The presence of such partners gives a credibility to the project exploitation plans as they are ready to integrate such systems in their offer.
These plans will be carried out at an European level in expanding the collaboration of these companies beyond the limit of the project, necessary to keep both expertise together.
The combination of these two expertises will increase the competitiveness of the project partners by increasing their capabilities, their future offer but also by expanding the number of their future clients. This is quite in keeping with the European policy in terms of competitiveness.

A company having an expertise in market analysis has been also chosen as a partner to look carefully at a wider economic impact of the project.

The two research institutes involved in the project will take care of all that concerns the optimization of the system operation and the best system configuration selection. The study of such an innovative hybrid system and the identification of the best ranges of applications will certainly contribute to the European technical progress by proposing new "clean" solutions to the decentralized energy supply.

In terms of dissemination, the policy will be adapted to the different target groups :
- as mentioned earlier, a Web page on the project (presentation, on-line results) will be available for all the partners, the Commission, others technical experts, national agencies, schools and so on.
- in terms of decentralized electrification, the main target group are the utilities and the region and communities. Both installers are already in touch with such target groups
- The industrial end-user, 29 000 people on 17 sites in Europe, Asia and USA, will inform about its commitment on such a technology in its environment.