Advantage no need for Platinum to trigger the reaction

Unusual opening week last in Paris. In a door adjacent to a building of 283 units, located nine brand-new local Brancion, in the 15th arrondissement, Throne a strange machine, named "Cellia", to the imposing measurements: a length of 9 meters and a height of 4 meters, for a weight of 28 tons. It is in Europe, the first stack high power fuel (230 kWe) and thermal (180 kWt) into experimentation in social housing.

A colossal budget: 7 million euros, including the fuel cell absorbs 4.5 million euros. The balance funded technical studies upstream by the Ineris, the construction of infrastructure and experimental tracking. "This is not a gadget, it is a major innovation to reduce the energy consumption and polluting emissions," says Jean-Yves Mano, President of the public Office of planning and construction (Opac) of Paris, which has established a Charter for sustainable development for a year.

Less CO2 emission

There is urgency. In France, the building sector is the third producer of greenhouse gases (25) and represents 40 of the energy consumed by all of the activities. With this observation, "we we mobilize for several years to find innovative alternatives to the modes of heating of the 90,000 housing we manage in the capital", says Emmanuel Tual, Director of sustainable development in the Opac de Paris.

It is the interest of the cogeneration process that produces jointly heat (for heating and domestic hot water) and (used on the network EDF) electricity from hydrogen gas from city. This technology results in an average reduction of 30 of CO2 emissions from conventional installation. Already proven in the industry, she values more efficiently the heat used for heating of the building that it operates at high temperatures (650 C). Advantage: no need for Platinum to trigger the reaction. The cheaper nickel as a catalyst. Result: energy overall yield of 80-90.

Of this project initiated by Dalkia, joint subsidiary of Veolia Environnement and EDF, one of the providers of the Opac for its heating contracts. "The heart of the technology does not change, it is the manner in which the stack is implemented with security in cascade systems differs from an industrial facility," explains Alexandre Lima, project leader at the centre for research on the energy of the Veolia Environnement group. Not less than 23 detectors are on the lookout for any sign of gas in the room that houses Cellia. "In this exemplary demonstration, it is not question for us, nor for the constructor of the stack, the German MTU, to take the risk to a contre-référence", he added.

Resale of electricity

This prototype will cover about 20 of their heating and domestic hot water needs. Coupled with the existing installation, Cellia will work each year, from 1 November to 31 March, under a contract of purchase of cogeneration with EDF. The resale of this electricity will ease the loads of the tenants of 10 annual average, over a period of experimentation with minimum six years. At this time, should be whether this type of fuel cell is a possible alternative to the housing stock of the Opac de Paris. Both conditions are meet: reduce the cost of a factor of 10, by reducing the cost of the installation of EUR 7 million to 700,000 euros, and reduce congestion in half, without loss of power.