I’m a big fan a fuel cells and I was excited to hear that 2200 homes in Japan are now using fuel cells to generate electricity.
The Japanese government is strongly supporting this fuel cell technology. So much so that it has earmarked $309 million a year for fuel cell development and plans for 10 million homes–about one-fourth of Japanese households–to be powered by fuel cells by 2020.
Natural gas is widely used at home in Japan, so this kind of fuel cell system which generates electricity and hot water efficiently by natural gas, fits well into the market. But the initial installation cost is a kind of obstacle of spread. The preferential treatment like subsidy financial aid might be necessary.
Some other famous alternative systems are home solar electric panel or hot water generator “Eco Cute”. http://www.r744.com/news/ecocute_20071003.php?gclid=CKXCg_K4hZICFRc2egodjgbq3g
just want to say, fuel cells dont generate electricity, they just store electricity, the energy must be generated by solar panels, or others
This is the the technology, which extracts energy from the chemical reaction when hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water(hot water) and generate electricity. The oxygen that the fuel cell uses comes from the air and the hydrogen is extracted from natural gas by a device called a reformer, it is found in the same box as the fuel cell.