Got a green product that you love or hate? Share the word by writing a review and telling the world.
British Gas has unveiled a new type of fuel cell boiler that would effectively turn your home into a micro power station.
The boiler uses a method known as combined heat and power (CHP) to generate electricity and simultaneously heat a home using natural gas. British Gas is trialling the technology in 30 British homes already, and hopes it could be on sale to the rest of us by 2010.
CHP has been used on a large scale to heat and power homes in Scandinavia for years, but this looks set to be its first appearance in UK homes.
The unit is developed by UK-based Ceres Power and is designed to completely replace a home's existing boiler. Unlike roof-mounted solar panels or micro wind turbines, it won't be at the mercy of our delightfully changeable British weather. British Gas reckons the annual gas and electricity savings could be up to a quarter off the bill of a home with a modern condensing boiler.
Instead of burning gas like a condensing boiler, this new machine passes gas through a fuel cell in a chemical process that creates heat and electricity simultaneously. In other words, it turns your home into a micro generator of electricity.
That also means your boiler will sometimes be generating more electricity than you're using, in which case you'd be able to export that back to the national grid. We asked British Gas whether it would guarantee to buy back the home-generated electricity, but it said it hadn't yet made a decision.
Utility companies including Powergen (now E.ON) have previously promised to bring micro CHP boilers to the UK. Earlier this month, boiler-maker Baxi also presented its own micro CHP machine, the Ecogen, which it expects to go on sale early next year -- potentially pipping the British Gas boiler to the market.
British Gas wouldn't give an exact price for the fuel cell boiler, though it described is being "only slightly more" than a modern boiler, which typically cost £2,000. Savings made by the new machines are expected to pay back the premium within five years.
We reckon these new home power station machines will set you back between £2,500 and £3,000 -- bringing them roughly in line with solar water heating, which usually costs around £3,000 to install.
10 April 2008 01:11pm
Interesting concept - but just replacing the boiler won't give heat and power in usable forms, there will be other costs associated with harnessing the heat and power and converting it to the correct form suitable for domestic use.
A new install with the whole system geared to this boiler is feasible but retro fitting could end up a lot more expensive.
Please note: Your email address must be entered but will not be displayed
Please note: All submitted content becomes the sole property of CNET Networks UK and may be used, edited or rejected at CNET Networks UK's sole discretion. You acknowledge that you, not CNET Networks UK, are responsible for the contents of your submission.
Got a green product that you love or hate? Share the word by writing a review and telling the world.
