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Baxi Group Combined Heat and Power Microgeneration

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Language: en

00:00:07.309
it's imperative that we solve the
00:00:10.009 00:00:10.019 challenges of reducing global warming
00:00:12.140 00:00:12.150 and carbon emissions changing the way we
00:00:14.720 00:00:14.730 use heat and power in our homes is one
00:00:16.609 00:00:16.619 way of doing that micro CHP or combined
00:00:20.689 00:00:20.699 heat and power is a groundbreaking new
00:00:23.480 00:00:23.490 boiler technology which has the
00:00:25.400 00:00:25.410 potential to completely transform the
00:00:27.589 00:00:27.599 way electricity is produced and
00:00:29.240 00:00:29.250 distributed
00:00:35.500 00:00:35.510 there were already industrial CHP
00:00:38.930 00:00:38.940 applications used by large sites such as
00:00:41.890 00:00:41.900 hospitals but micro CHP is really the
00:00:45.799 00:00:45.809 application of this technology in a
00:00:48.049 00:00:48.059 domestic way the yukachan micro CHP the
00:00:57.740 00:00:57.750 back sea of developed it's just like any
00:00:59.840 00:00:59.850 normal wall-hung boiler it can be hung
00:01:02.210 00:01:02.220 in your kitchen your garage but what's
00:01:05.240 00:01:05.250 special about this technology is that
00:01:07.040 00:01:07.050 whilst the boilers on and it's providing
00:01:09.859 00:01:09.869 your central heating and hot water it's
00:01:12.320 00:01:12.330 also using that heat to generate a
00:01:15.139 00:01:15.149 kilowatt of electricity that electricity
00:01:17.570 00:01:17.580 can be used in your home or it can be
00:01:20.480 00:01:20.490 exported back to the grid the device
00:01:23.930 00:01:23.940 producing the electricity inside the
00:01:26.270 00:01:26.280 kijun boiler is a Stirling engine which
00:01:28.910 00:01:28.920 was invented almost 200 years ago
00:01:31.609 00:01:31.619 unlike the internal combustion engine
00:01:34.160 00:01:34.170 used in cars it consists of a sealed
00:01:36.950 00:01:36.960 chamber with two interconnected Pistons
00:01:39.530 00:01:39.540 that move alternately between areas of
00:01:42.050 00:01:42.060 hot and cold air or gas there are no
00:01:44.719 00:01:44.729 explosions so it's very quiet and most
00:01:47.990 00:01:48.000 importantly it's extremely efficient 90
00:01:53.240 00:01:53.250 percent of the energy going into an eco
00:01:55.249 00:01:55.259 gen comes out of it as either heat or
00:01:57.710 00:01:57.720 electricity
00:01:58.639 00:01:58.649 whereas generating electricity through a
00:02:01.130 00:02:01.140 power station is typically only around
00:02:03.709 00:02:03.719 30 to 40 percent efficient the homeowner
00:02:06.380 00:02:06.390 gets a reduction in their electricity
00:02:08.330 00:02:08.340 bill but it also offers very good carbon
00:02:11.810 00:02:11.820 savings because of the greater
00:02:14.000 00:02:14.010 efficiency in which producing
00:02:15.680 00:02:15.690 electricity on-site in your home than
00:02:18.020 00:02:18.030 producing it in a centralized power
00:02:19.819 00:02:19.829 station the eco gen boiler is already on
00:02:24.080 00:02:24.090 the market but Baxi is also working with
00:02:26.630 00:02:26.640 the University of Birmingham to develop
00:02:29.030 00:02:29.040 a more advanced micro CHP system
00:02:32.180 00:02:32.190 the inner tech boiler produces three to
00:02:34.160 00:02:34.170 four times more electricity than the eco
00:02:36.470 00:02:36.480 gen boiler
00:02:37.340 00:02:37.350 it runs on a hydrogen fuel cell it's a
00:02:41.150 00:02:41.160 fundamental material in the universe
00:02:46.720 00:02:46.730 it's in everything it's in water you
00:02:49.670 00:02:49.680 know it's in the polymers of my shirt
00:02:51.140 00:02:51.150 it's in my body hydrogens everywhere
00:02:52.940 00:02:52.950 it's so easy to make from thousands of
00:02:55.070 00:02:55.080 different methods now of course it's
00:02:56.600 00:02:56.610 very clean and efficient but that makes
00:02:57.950 00:02:57.960 it the ideal vector the most flexible
00:02:59.930 00:02:59.940 fuel people have ever discovered
00:03:03.790 00:03:03.800 hydrogen a fuel often used in space
00:03:06.470 00:03:06.480 rockets does not exist in pure form on
00:03:08.900 00:03:08.910 earth it's found for example in water
00:03:11.330 00:03:11.340 and fossil fuels where it binds
00:03:13.100 00:03:13.110 chemically with other elements at
00:03:16.400 00:03:16.410 present the most economical way of
00:03:18.350 00:03:18.360 getting pure hydrogen is by extracting
00:03:20.480 00:03:20.490 it from gas this is the process used in
00:03:23.120 00:03:23.130 the inner tech boiler it's an instant
00:03:25.040 00:03:25.050 device because it's using the same gas
00:03:26.990 00:03:27.000 right now that drives your gas boiler
00:03:28.430 00:03:28.440 the gas comes in but in this box you
00:03:30.980 00:03:30.990 convert that to hydrogen there's a
00:03:32.480 00:03:32.490 little chemical plant in the mix
00:03:34.040 00:03:34.050 hydrogen that hydrogen then goes into a
00:03:35.780 00:03:35.790 fuel cell which is a little stack like a
00:03:37.280 00:03:37.290 battery that produces the electricity
00:03:39.260 00:03:39.270 which can then drive your house with and
00:03:41.030 00:03:41.040 then cause heats coming out of that
00:03:42.560 00:03:42.570 because as you produce electricity you
00:03:44.030 00:03:44.040 get a bit of heat it's a byproduct that
00:03:45.650 00:03:45.660 heat goes into a hot water tank just
00:03:47.690 00:03:47.700 like you do with your own oil this is a
00:03:49.760 00:03:49.770 fuel cell system and it works in a very
00:03:52.490 00:03:52.500 simple way a bit like a battery but here
00:03:54.680 00:03:54.690 we have the guts of it this is a polymer
00:03:56.030 00:03:56.040 membrane because your plastic membrane
00:03:57.440 00:03:57.450 plastic film very important because ions
00:03:59.600 00:03:59.610 hydrogen ions can go through it so it's
00:04:01.009 00:04:01.019 an electrolyte on one side we've got a
00:04:02.990 00:04:03.000 black electrode a black covering and on
00:04:05.660 00:04:05.670 this side we've got a similar black
00:04:06.560 00:04:06.570 coating and these are the two electrodes
00:04:08.180 00:04:08.190 and we feed hiding them to one side
00:04:09.790 00:04:09.800 oxygen to the other they don't mix they
00:04:12.199 00:04:12.209 react across this membrane
00:04:14.300 00:04:14.310 as the hydrogen molecule hits the
00:04:16.340 00:04:16.350 membrane it is split into protons and
00:04:18.830 00:04:18.840 electrons the protons can pass through
00:04:21.470 00:04:21.480 the polymer or electrolyte the electrons
00:04:24.110 00:04:24.120 cannot and are conducted through an
00:04:26.150 00:04:26.160 external circuit creating electricity on
00:04:30.680 00:04:30.690 the oxygen side of the membrane the
00:04:33.050 00:04:33.060 electrons recombine with the protons and
00:04:35.390 00:04:35.400 oxygen to form water which is the only
00:04:38.060 00:04:38.070 waste product of this process overalls
00:04:41.330 00:04:41.340 is 90% deficient and 30% is that is
00:04:43.909 00:04:43.919 electricity which is very valuable if we
00:04:45.710 00:04:45.720 have twenty million of these units in
00:04:47.300 00:04:47.310 Britain we don't need any big power
00:04:49.280 00:04:49.290 stations we have a distributed system
00:04:50.990 00:04:51.000 everybody is producing a little bit of
00:04:52.580 00:04:52.590 electricity and much more efficient than
00:04:54.200 00:04:54.210 clean and we have a question one of the
00:04:56.810 00:04:56.820 main problems of hydrogen based
00:04:58.550 00:04:58.560 technology is that hydrogen does not
00:05:01.040 00:05:01.050 exist freely and has to be extracted
00:05:03.260 00:05:03.270 from other substances this needs to make
00:05:07.580 00:05:07.590 it of course you've got to provide the
00:05:09.379 00:05:09.389 energy supply and the real question is
00:05:11.060 00:05:11.070 where does that come from because if we
00:05:12.560 00:05:12.570 get that from a coal-fired power station
00:05:14.270 00:05:14.280 that's not ideal we're still going to be
00:05:16.129 00:05:16.139 pumping some emissions up in the
00:05:18.200 00:05:18.210 atmosphere get the right source like
00:05:20.270 00:05:20.280 biomass wind power solar power then
00:05:22.940 00:05:22.950 we've really got a clean energy vehicle
00:05:25.430 00:05:25.440 to the future in 2008 the University and
00:05:31.700 00:05:31.710 Baxi installed the first hydrogen fueled
00:05:34.070 00:05:34.080 boiler in a domestic house the house is
00:05:36.890 00:05:36.900 owned and managed by the Black Country
00:05:38.719 00:05:38.729 Housing Association
00:05:41.110 00:05:41.120 - fuel cells are a key part of our
00:05:44.180 00:05:44.190 energy future as a landlord our interest
00:05:47.120 00:05:47.130 is in renting properties to people in
00:05:50.230 00:05:50.240 2050 we're told carbon fuels won't be
00:05:53.210 00:05:53.220 available at an affordable price so
00:05:55.550 00:05:55.560 something else will be needed and
00:05:57.590 00:05:57.600 hydrogen fuel cell technology looks like
00:05:59.750 00:05:59.760 it could be a very important part of
00:06:01.370 00:06:01.380 that future in most combined heat and
00:06:03.680 00:06:03.690 power systems you get much more heat and
00:06:07.150 00:06:07.160 increasingly with better insulation in
00:06:09.320 00:06:09.330 houses we don't want as much heat as we
00:06:11.540 00:06:11.550 want electricity and the fuel cell is
00:06:13.640 00:06:13.650 the most efficient system for converting
00:06:15.920 00:06:15.930 fuel into electrical power this is a
00:06:18.140 00:06:18.150 beta fuel cell and you can see the size
00:06:20.000 00:06:20.010 of it the gamma which is the next series
00:06:21.950 00:06:21.960 is a third of the size this box contains
00:06:24.320 00:06:24.330 a lot of things which you've got to get
00:06:25.700 00:06:25.710 a lot smaller and
00:06:27.040 00:06:27.050 in fact 200 components here we need to
00:06:28.839 00:06:28.849 shrink that pole 250 component that
00:06:30.460 00:06:30.470 takes a lot of development we have to
00:06:31.960 00:06:31.970 get the materials right we have to get
00:06:33.640 00:06:33.650 the design right we have to get the
00:06:35.050 00:06:35.060 costs racked a lifetime
00:06:36.399 00:06:36.409 all these questions come up and it's a
00:06:37.930 00:06:37.940 real engineering project in that sense
00:06:39.279 00:06:39.289 it's not just one thing you've got to
00:06:40.510 00:06:40.520 solve the response has been incredible I
00:06:44.140 00:06:44.150 spoke to one gentleman last week he just
00:06:46.779 00:06:46.789 can't get over the fact that he's
00:06:48.399 00:06:48.409 generating his own electricity and who
00:06:50.860 00:06:50.870 said he can't stop watching his me -
00:06:52.540 00:06:52.550 spinning backwards engineering is the
00:06:54.219 00:06:54.229 solution to real problems for example
00:06:56.230 00:06:56.240 can you solve the energy crisis can you
00:06:58.210 00:06:58.220 solve the problem of emissions we've got
00:06:59.529 00:06:59.539 on the planet these are the things that
00:07:01.360 00:07:01.370 engineers can address they might sales
00:07:02.649 00:07:02.659 to ambitious it's not really because a
00:07:04.390 00:07:04.400 small thing like a fuel cell could solve
00:07:06.850 00:07:06.860 a lot of the planets problem

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