No. 1: Household fuel cell operative in power outage (September 12, 2011)

A household fuel cell generates electricity and heat using city gas and LPG as fuel. When power outage occurs, it automatically stops to prevent the reverse power flow that the electricity of the fuel cell flows into the electricity networks of electric power companies. JX Nippon Oil &Energy will launch a fuel cell integrated with a storage cell using lithium-ion cells. The company built a storage battery with a capacity of 6 kW that uses 90 lithium-ion cells designed for PCs built in China. In the experimental operation for possible power outage, it confirmed that the storage battery successfully changed the mode to receive stored electricity for continuous generation. It can provide power to lighting and refrigerators without interruption as long as the power consumption is within its capacity.

The storage battery will be about one million yen. Because it will be sold with the fuel cell, the set price will be around 2,600,000 yen with the help of the expected subsidy. The company plans to sell 4,000 fuel cells in 2012, half of which is scheduled to be integrated with a storage battery. The annual sales of ENE-FARM the company put on the market in 2009 were about 5,000 units both in 2009 and 2010. However, sales jumped to 8,133 units by early July because of the Fukushima disaster. Demand for integrated type is estimated to grow, but the additional cost of 1 million yen is not a small burden to consumers. The company needs to realize low cost and bigger sales simultaneously.