Housed at the administration and warehouse facilities of Fairbanks Natural Gas (FNG), the only commercial source of natural gas in Interior Alaska, the five-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cell is the first of its small size, designed for use in a residential, small business or remote setting.

Installed at FNG last July, the fuel cell provides the company with some of its electric power, as well as some auxiliary heat for the building. In exchange, FNG provides space for the fuel cell unit and natural gas for its fuel.

"We haven't done an efficiency and cost comparison, but I'm pretty sure it's enough to offset the gas," said Fairbanks Natural Gas President Dan Britton. "It's a great project, and the potential for fuel cells in the future is exciting."

The U.S. Department of Energy, through its Arctic Energy Office, provided a large part of funding for the $383,000 project.

Researchers are pleased with the unit's performance and consistent operation.

"I personally expected some issues with the control system - these are to be expected on first units shipped to the field," said Dennis Witmer, director of the laboratory. "But we have had no problems of this sort to date."

Since starting last summer, the fuel cell experienced only one shutdown, triggered by an extended outage from the local power grid, Witmer said.

"The performance of the fuel cell has been excellent, much better than expected in several ways," Witmer said. "The stack is operating well, and there is no noticeable degradation in the stack performance to date."

Typically, fuel cell stacks begins to degrade fairly rapidly after the first 1,000 hours or more of operation, Witmer said. But this unit is supposed to improve for the first 10,000 hours, and then begin degrading at a slow rate of about one percent a year.

So far, the research project appears to be proving that longevity characteristic. "At 5,000 hours, we expect no more than .5 percent (degradation) which would be very hard to detect," Witmer said.

The fuel cell operates at more than 50 percent efficiency when producing direct current (DC) power, and more than 40 percent on alternating current (AC or household) power, which is "excellent" for any five-kilowatt device, Witmer said.

Comparatively, a typical generator of the same size fueled by diesel or gasoline would be about 25 percent efficient, he said.

The solid oxide fuel cell consumes 30 cubic feet of natural gas per hour, heating it to above 800 degrees Celsius. That's the point where the natural gas reforms into hydrogen, creating the chemical reaction that generates electric power. A ceramic material - the solid oxide part of the unit - which can withstand high heat, contains the chemical reaction.

Siemens previously produced 25- and 250-kilowatt solid oxide fuel cells for cooperative demonstration projects, Witmer said. This five-kilowatt unit is designed for residential, small commercial and remote facility applications.

The U.S. Department of Energy contributed $247,825 in funds for the purchase, installation and testing of the five-kilowatt fuel cell. UAF contributed another $135,053 to the project, for a total of $383,878.