PPL Corporation / FuelCell Energy Direct FuelCell CHP

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA – http://www.nyserda.org) has contracted with the Greenhouse Gas Technology Center to perform ETV verifications on five new Combined Heat and Power installations in New York State.

The first of this series is a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) CHP system manufactured by FuelCell Energy (http://www.fce.com) under the name “Direct FuelCell” (DFC®) and installed and operated by PPL Corporation (http://www.pplweb.com) at the Starwood (http://www.starwood.com) Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers at 811 - 7^th Avenue on 53^rd Street in New York City.  The DFC® 300A unit specifications indicate both 300,000 BTU/h of heat and 250 kW of electric power are available to the host site.

FuelCell Energy’s products are called Direct FuelCells because they can use hydrocarbon fuels without the need to first create hydrogen in an external fuel processor.

The principle parameters for this ETV Verification are:

• Impacts on local and regional emissions (NO_x, SO₂, CO and CO₂);
• Heat recovery fuel-to-heat efficiency;
• Power generated and fuel-to-power efficiency;
• Net change in fuel efficiency;
• Power Factor and impact on power quality.

Field testing is currently scheduled for October 2006.