Fuel cell

D

dinwood

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www.inwoods.org
Hello liveaboards,
We've just traded boats and the "new" one came with a fuel cell. We're fully powered up with a Duogen and PV, so have no need for the it. Does anyone have a good view on how we can turn it into cash and what it might be worth? I can't see that one has ever sold on eBay (used) and I hope its worth more than the £400 limit on the YBW forum.
 
Do you know how old it is? They have a relatively short life expectancy and a service is expensive - you will add a lot to its value if you can prove that it is either quite new or recently serviced.

I was looking very seriously for one a couple of months ago - till I understood the running costs.
 
Hi,

I work for a Fuel Cell company and just wanted put down the correct facts as the above post is slightly misleading.

The EFOY Fuel Cells are maintenance free. They do however have a finite life. This life is difficult to predict, but is usually around the 4-5,000 operating hours mark.

At this point you'll likely need to have the stack replaced, which is where the high service costs probably came from.

If you size the fuel cell correctly, it can take years to reach 4,000 hours.

It doesn't help the OP, but the new models out have the option of a 5 year warranty, regardless of how many hours are on the fuel cell. So you really should have 5 years of maintenance free operation.

(to note, operating hours means hours charging, not hours on standby)

Hope this helps.

Tom
 
TomC said:
...I work for a Fuel Cell company..............life is difficult to predict, but is usually around the 4-5,000 operating hours mark.......
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This high service cost is something I've not heard of before, and makes Fuel Cells even less appealing than just the high fuel running costs.

The company's website shows a charge capacity/day of 210Ah for their largest fuel cell which only charges at 8.8 amps - so after 24 hrs it could theoretically put in 211Ah but only into a large battery bank that will take a constant 8.8 amps which would not fall away as the battery becomes fully charged. More realistically this might be 100Ah/24hrs running continually if trying to get a battery bank up to 100%.

So at 100Ah/d the number of days a Fuel Cell should last before they need major maintenance is a maximum of 5000hrs/24hrs, which is about 200 days. Since this is a liveaboard forum then then this is a fair estimate for a full time liveaboard. Your average daily Ah usage maybe much more, especially when sailing, and you may also have solar power which could put in 50Ahs/d with a 200 watt array. Add in occasional motoring and visits to marinas and the 200 days could be extended to 365 days. If you are using your fuel cell for MOST of your charging needs then according to Effoy's figures they surely cannot last 5 years before needing a major service.

I know you can prove anything with numbers!
 
sailinglegend420 said:
This high service cost is something I've not heard of before, and makes Fuel Cells even less appealing than just the high fuel running costs.

The company's website shows a charge capacity/day of 210Ah for their largest fuel cell which only charges at 8.8 amps - so after 24 hrs it could theoretically put in 211Ah but only into a large battery bank that will take a constant 8.8 amps which would not fall away as the battery becomes fully charged. More realistically this might be 100Ah/24hrs running continually if trying to get a battery bank up to 100%.

So at 100Ah/d the number of days a Fuel Cell should last before they need major maintenance is a maximum of 5000hrs/24hrs, which is about 200 days. Since this is a liveaboard forum then then this is a fair estimate for a full time liveaboard. Your average daily Ah usage maybe much more, especially when sailing, and you may also have solar power which could put in 50Ahs/d with a 200 watt array. Add in occasional motoring and visits to marinas and the 200 days could be extended to 365 days. If you are using your fuel cell for MOST of your charging needs then according to Effoy's figures they surely cannot last 5 years before needing a major service.

I know you can prove anything with numbers!
Click to expand...

The high running costs are down to the outrageous over-pricing of the ethanol being supplied by the cell manufacturers. B&Q sell 1.5 litre bottles of bio-ethanol for £7.99 and if you Google, you can find it for much less than that. It is claimed that the expensive stuff in it's dedicated containers is in some way "super refined" but one just has to ask how "super" IS "super refined" when that sold by B&Q is used in non-vented room heaters which I would assume havn't killed anyone yet?
 
I haven't looked at the EFOY units recently but did consider one about 18 months ago. I couldn't find the technical detail I wanted very easily but did dig out some papers about this type of cell. I don't have my figures to hand but decided not to purchase due to:

1) Worries about how long it would last
2) Concern over the fact that output was likely to drop significantly over time (prob. to 50% if I remember the graph)
3) Likely service cost
4) Availability of methanol
5) Amount of fuel I needed to carry
6) Cost of methanol

It's a pity that I don't have the figures but it didn't seem to be a worthwhile purchase when used on a daily basis by a liveaboard (even as a supplement to wind and solar).

I think that I found very high purity methanol at a fraction of the price for the "correct" fuel. However, it would void the warranty and wasn't worth the risk. I imagine that the concern over poisoning the catalyst is the biggest issue with methanol from an unknown source. I think that the common bulk stuff used on industrial scale on my old work-site was 99.8% with highest purity about 99.98% in lab. (long time ago though). So I'm guessing anything you buy will be >99% (but 1% impurities still enough to poison a catalyst). Can't see a problem if you can source cheap 99.98% MeOH (apart from warranty).
 
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charles_reed said:
I suspect that fuel cells are intended to be used instead of batteries, not to re-charge them.
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The technology might be more suited to replacing batteries in certain low demand situations. However, the EFOY units are being sold for use with batteries. The supplier emphasises the fact that they cut in automatically to maintain battery charge and continue to run until the battery is charged. Even the largest EFOY model only puts out 8.8A max. and the more common model is 6A max. So they aren't really viable as a battery replacement. You still need a battery to handle large power requirements.

If you can keep max. power below 6A - 8.8A then it would be fine. You would still need a start battery but could get rid of the alternator. Not certain I'd fancy that though.
 
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Fuel cells are technically attractive and commercially ridiculous - for most people. The purchase price and service costs are high as is the methanol fuel. The trouble is that you need very concentrated methanol - far more so than is available over the counter. At that level of concentration, it is dangerous stuff and not easy to buy - you can get large drums of industrial stuff which may not be sufficiently pure to avoid damaging your expensive catalysts, or you can buy the official stuff from the cell manufacturer which is guaranteed for the cell, but expensive. If you go for buying in bulk, do your homework - it really is very nasty stuff and you need to know how to handle it.
 
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