Using solar PV and/or wind to generate hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cell-hybrid vehicles is an exciting new area that has worldwide appeal and support. The reversible fuel cell is a technology that can accept electrical power and electrolyze water to make high purity hydrogen gas under pressure. This hydrogen is compressed into tanks in the fuel cell-hybrid vehicle to provide enough energy onboard for an extended driving range. Proton Energy Systems estimate (corporate stock prospectus underwritten by Lehman Brothers) that the hydrogen-powered vehicle production will quickly ramp up from 750 vehicles in 2004 to 25,000 in 2007 and to 1 million vehicles in 2010. Their systems are initially aimed at the community-fuel station market, but small systems would be a possible market for individual homes with solar PV clean electricity available.
Another electrolytic hydrogen-generator supplier is Stuart Energy (www. stuartenergy. com), who is a world leader in supplying clean hydrogen fuel via water electrolysis for fuel cell
vehicles and environmentally friendly energy applications. They have been building hydrogen electrolysis units since they were founded in 1948. On April 22, 2003,Toyota opened the first hydrogen fuel station in Southern California using the Stuart Energy system. Their newest system can supply hydrogen under pressures up to 10,000 psi for the Ford and other automobile company onboard fiber-wound hydrogen storage tanks. Figure 14.5 shows the author’s Ford Focus, the model that Ford has announced will next be available commercially as a fuel cell hybrid. It can be supplied with hydrogen supplied from solar PV-generated electricity. The division of Stuart Energy that has been supplying the large-scale hydrogen electrolyzers used in the process industries is called “The Electrolyzer Corporation Ltd., also in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
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So it is like witnessing a historical event – this is the beginning of the hydrogen economy as envisioned by Jeremy Rifkin (Rifkin, 2002) with hydrogen generated by renewable clean energy sources that are not dependent on fossil fuel in
any manner; well introduced in his address to the European Union in Brussel on June 16-17, 2003:
