I have been looking into hydrogen cells and have been amazed at the ease of producing hydrogen. On YouTube, there are umpteen videos on producjng hydrogen and converting cars to run on hydrogen. This got me thinking about producing hydrogen that is produced with solar energy and stored in tanks that are sized to drive a small generator to power a standard sized house. Has anyone had any success or the same thoughts as me. Any help would be greatly welcomed before I embark on this project. Don...
Re: hydrogen, just a thought?
The same thought occurred to me but I assumed that the problems with storing hydrogen, both physically and legally, would make it impractical and then there's the safety issue. Maybe it is worth looking into though.
Re: hydrogen, just a thought?
Same here... have seen lots of YouTube videos, but could not find the components to build a system for a reasonable price...
Maybe this technology is a bit too daring for most, hence, no reply to this post yet?!
Re: hydrogen, just a thought?
A safer method of "storing" surplus PV could be Zeolite. You can get this as powder or pellets.
As I understand it you can heat this stuff and this de-hydrates it, but does not raise the temperature significantly. Then, if you "add water" you get an exothermic reaction. The great thing seems to be that one is storing a state change, not heat, so massive insulation is not needed to store energy from summer to winter.
For house heating, or water heating, storing surplus PV power may be practical. I find, with my PIC based PV Diverter, that many summer days I have heated two large immersion-heater tanks by mid-morning and the rest of the day the bulk of my PV is exported. - it would be nice to get my hands on that energy.
However - I have not researched how much volume is needed to store a useful amount of heat, and of course uniformly heating the stuff and uniformly re-hydrating, and dealing with the heat-exchange in both directions, poses engineering problems.
Re: hydrogen, just a thought?
Zeolite == Catlitter!
Paul
Re: hydrogen, just a thought?
Anyone wishing to learn more about hydrogen may find this mildly helpful (if the links still work): http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/2260 After some investigation I decided it was a non-starter for small scale plant. Cost and safety issues.
The same also applies for liquid air but if interested in storage (as we all must be) I suggest watch this space since the technology involved means that it is do-able now.
Rob