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Efficiency & Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308

Fall 2012 Composite Data Products – Backup Power

J. Kurtz, K. Wipke, S. Sprik, T. Ramsden, C. Ainscough, and G. Saur

Technical Report

NREL/TP-5600-56783

October 2012
NOTICE

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2

CDP-BU-01

Backup Power Fuel Cell Systems Deployed

2009 Q32009 Q42010 Q12010 Q22010 Q32010 Q42011 Q12011 Q22011 Q32011 Q42012 Q12012 Q2 0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

 10 14 14 31 44

204 232

357

494

625 647 649

Backup Power Fuel Cell Systems Deployed

Cumulative Systems 1,2 Deployed

NREL cdp_bu_01

Created: Sep-13-12 11:59 AM 1) Sites may have more than one FC system

2) Not all FC systems are supplying operation data
3

CDP-BU-02

Deployed kW Capacity for Backup Power

2009 Q32009 Q42010 Q12010 Q22010 Q32010 Q42011 Q12011 Q22011 Q32011 Q42012 Q12012 Q2 0

500

1000

1500

 50 70 70 104 130

 444

 500

 761

1065

1378

1449 1453

Deployed kW Capacity for Backup Power

Cumulative Deployed Capacity [kW]

NREL cdp_bu_02

Created: Sep-13-12 11:59 AM
4

CDP-BU-03

Backup Power Deployments

1-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

>100

NREL cdp_bu_03

Created: Sep-28-12 10:47 AM

State kW Capacity Sites

Arizona 84 16

California 567 122

Colorado 24 5

Connecticut 121 26

Florida 6 1

Georgia 50 1

Illinois 4 2

Indiana 50 16

Kentucky 22 4

Massachusetts 10 1

Michigan 164 40

New Jersey 110 27

New York 186 44

South Carolina 50 1

Utah 36 9

Totals 1484 315

Site Capacity (line height proporational to installed site kW capacity)

Number of

Sites in State

Backup Power

Deployments
5

CDP-BU-04

Fuel Cell System Starts by Month

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

Starts

Starts by Month

07/0908/0909/0910/0911/0912/0901/1002/1003/1004/1005/1006/1007/1008/1009/1010/1011/1012/1001/1102/1103/1104/1105/1106/1107/1108/1109/1110/1111/1112/1101/1202/1203/1204/1205/1206/12

Calendar Month

1526 of 1533 Starts Successful (99.5%)

52% Conditioning Starts

Starts

Conditioning1 Start

Successful Start

0

15

30

45

60

75

90

105

120

135

150

Reporting FC Systems

NREL cdp_bu_04

Created: Sep-13-12 6:37 PM 1) FC system conditioning is an automated operation for regular

system checks; activitated after long periods of no operation.
6

CDP-BU-05

Fuel Cell System Run Hours by Month

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

07/0908/0909/0910/0911/0912/0901/1002/1003/1004/1005/1006/1007/1008/1009/1010/1011/1012/1001/1102/1103/1104/1105/1106/1107/1108/1109/1110/1111/1112/1101/1202/1203/1204/1205/1206/12

Calendar Month

Calculated Runtime [hours]

Run Hours by Month

845 Total Runtime Hours

Run Hours

Conditioning1 Hours

NREL cdp_bu_05

Created: Sep-13-12 12:03 PM 1) FC system conditioning is an automated operation for regular

system checks that are run after long periods of no operation.
7

CDP-BU-06

Cumulative Hydrogen Consumed by Month

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

07/0908/0909/0910/0911/0912/0901/1002/1003/1004/1005/1006/1007/1008/1009/1010/1011/1012/1001/1102/1103/1104/1105/1106/1107/1108/1109/1110/1111/1112/1101/1202/1203/1204/1205/1206/12

Calendar Month

Hydrogen kgs Consumed

Cumulative Hydrogen Consumed by Month

76.9 kgs Total Consumed H2

30,222 scf Total Consumed H2

NREL cdp_bu_06

Created: Sep-13-12 12:04 PM
8

CDP-BU-07

Fuel Cell System Starts by Day of Week

Sun Mon Tues Wed Thur Fri Sat 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

System Starts by Day of Week

Starts [%]

NREL cdp_bu_07 Day

Created: Sep-13-12 12:04 PM
9

CDP-BU-08

Fuel Cell System Starts by Time of Day

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 0

5

10

15

20

25

System Starts by Time of Day

Starts [%]

Time of Day

Starts

Conditioning1 Starts

NREL cdp_bu_08

Created: Sep-13-12 12:04 PM 1) FC system conditioning is an automated operation for regular

system checks; activitated after long periods of no operation.
10

CDP-BU-09

Continuous Fuel Cell System Run Time 

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Inf 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Continuous Run Time [hours]

Starts [%]

Continous System Run Time

Max Continuous Run Time = 29 hours

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Continuous Run Time [Mins]

Starts<=60 mins [%]

NREL cdp_bu_09

Created: Sep-28-12 9:34 AM
11

EStop: 1

No Fuel: 1

System Failure: 5

Unsuccessful Operation Categories

NREL cdp_bu_10

Created: Sep-28-12 10:29 AM

CDP-BU-10

Unsuccessful Operation Categories 
12

CDP-BU-11

Time Between System Starts

1 2 7 14 28 31 Inf 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Days

Frequency [%]

Time Between Starts

NREL cdp_bu_11

Created: Sep-28-12 9:29 AM
13

CDP-BU-12

System Start Ambient Temperature

<0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Ambient Temperature [oC]

Frequency [%]

Ambient Temperature at Start

NREL cdp_bu_12

Created: Sep-13-12 12:06 PM
14

CDP-BU-13

System Operation Time

5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Inf 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Operation Hours

Number of Systems [%]

25% of systems have hours > 10.3

Max system hours = 51.5

System Operation Hours

NREL cdp_bu_13

Created: Sep-28-12 9:43 AM
15

0 2 4 6 8 10 Inf 0

50

100

150

200

250

Capacity by Site

Capacity [kW]

Number of Sites

75%

NREL cdp_bu_14

Created: Sep-28-12 10:46 AM

CDP-BU-14

Site Capacity
16

CDP-BU-15

Backup Power Operation with Grid Outage from 01/2010 – 06/2012