State officials and business leaders on Thursday lauded a pair of fuel cell power generation projects in Derby as an important component of Connecticut’s energy future.
One of the projects is already producing 14 megawatts of electricity on a piece of land sandwiched between Roosevelt Drive and the Housatonic River. A second fuel cell generating unit will begin producing 2.8 megawatts of electricity within city’s public works department complex on Coon Hollow Road later this year.
Both projects are owned and developed by Danbury-based FuelCell Energy. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said the state needs to take a multi-faceted approach to fulfilling its energy needs, and fuel cells are an important part of that.
“We’re going through an energy transformation renaissance right now,” Lamont said during a press conference at the new fuel cell park on Thursday. “I think about things in terms of reliability; I think about things in terms of affordability and try to brings those two things together that makes sense for our state. We’re working that hard and right now; fuel cell is a big piece of what we’ve got to do.”
One of the things that makes fuel cells attractive, he said, is that they can often be built next to electric utility substations.
Another attractive aspect of fuel cell generating facilities is that they can be developed in a much smaller window of time than traditional power plants. Jason Few, FuelCell Energy’s chief executive officer, said that once a project has the necessary permits and an interconnection with the natural gas distribution network, the facilities take about a year to build.
“It allows us to put utility scale power exactly where it is needed,” Few said. FuelCell Energy is selling the electricity produced at the two Derby facilities to The United Illuminating Co. and Eversource Energy under the terms of a pair of 20 year contracts, he said.
The two Derby fuel cell parks are the second and third utility scale facilities the company owns and operates in the state of Connecticut.
FuelCell Energy built a 14.9 megawatt fuel cell park in Bridgeport for Dominion Energy that opened in 2013. The company then reacquired the fuel cell park from Dominion for $30 million in 2019.
The power produced by the company’s fuel cells is created through an electrochemical reaction involving natural gas. That electrochemical reaction is virtually free of emissions.
Generating one megawatt of electricity is enough to power 1,000 homes or businesses, according to Few. The fuel cell park on Roosevelt Avenue in Derby and the one in Bridgeport are the two largest such facilities in North America, he said.
Officials with United Illuminating and Eversource said they are supportive of efforts to build additional fuel cell parks in Connecticut. Pedro Azagra, chief executive officer for UI’s corporate parent, Avangrid, said a fuel cell park can produced as much energy as a single off-shore wind turbine.
“We’re demonstrating the innovative, all-of-the-above approach our company is taking to help deliver a renewable energy future in Connecticut, by procuring the energy from this fuel cell,” Azgara said.
Liam Needham, director of sales and marketing for Eversource’s customer thermal solutions, said the company is supportive of additional fuel cell parks being built.
“We believe we can be a catalyst for a clean energy future,” Needham said.
Few said the development of additional fuel cell parks in Connecticut will benefit from the billions of dollars available to the state through the Inflation Reduction Act and other federal programs.
Source : CT Insider