Scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have successfully completed a year-long residential fuel cell demonstration program at Brooks City-Base. 

  
The program, funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, involved SwRI installing three 5-kW proton exchange membrane fuel cells at the military base. 

The cells, fueled by hydrogen through natural gas reformers, supplemented the power to three individual base housing units at Brooks by converting natural gas directly into electricity. 

Scientists connected the units to City Public Service's electric grid in order to supplement power from the fuel cells with standard sources of electricity. Power from the fuel cells also flowed back into the grid when it generated a surplus. 

"One of our requirements was that the fuel cells attain 90 percent overall availability for a period of one year," says Alan F. Montemayor, a principal engineer in SwRI's Engine, Emissions and Vehicle Research Division. "We met that requirement on all three fuel cells, with availabilities of 91.6, 93.9 and 96.2 percent." 

The primary objective was to install, operate, maintain, monitor and report data on the fuel cells to the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory. 

The institute's secondary objective included introducing fuel cell technology to both the military and City Public Service customers. 

With this critical performance data in hand, SwRI will be able to push fuel cell technology to the commercial market faster.