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Alternative energy fuels nursing home

At Palm Garden, Progress Energy has installed a fuel cell that transforms hydrogen into heat and electricity.

By JOSE CARDENAS
Published December 6, 2005

LARGO - The residents might not notice, but the nursing home where they live is helping develop an alternative form of energy.

Progress Energy of Florida has installed a fuel cell that converts hydrogen into electricity at Palm Garden of Largo. The quiet device is the energy company's second stationary fuel cell in the state.

"I thought it was something new," said Kevin Mort, Palm Garden's administrator, who volunteered the 140-bed facility for the project. "We've got to look at alternative energies."

Progress Energy is partnering with Plug Power Inc., the Albany, N.Y., manufacturer of the cell, for the 14-month project. The fuel cell was installed in October.

Both companies hope to come away with a better knowledge of the cells.

Plug Power wants to see how the fuel cells react to Florida's inclement and humid weather.

Progress Energy officials said they wanted to install the cell in a facility that provides emergency services.

"Because of the recent storm history, we had wanted to be able to offer some backup power," said Charles Thomas, Progress Energy's lead engineer. "If we were hit by one of these storms, we wanted to see if that unit would continue to operate."

The fuel cell provides 2 kilowatts of power to the facility and will provide 5 kilowatts of hallway lighting if the power goes out during a hurricane or other emergency.

"What we get out of it is experience," Thomas said. "How do these units work? How dependable are they? What's their efficiency? It's kind of an education for us."

The nursing facility fuel cell joins a couple of dozen or so demonstration projects in various types of facilities and cars around the state.

The projects are typically joint efforts between the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, energy companies, cell manufacturers and car companies.

The state's Environmental Protection Agency has 12 fuel cells in its district and branch offices, said Sarah Williams, the agency spokeswoman. It also operates three cars that run on fuel cells.

Williams said other projects include fuel cells at Tyndall Air Force Base and the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville.

Fuel cells resemble batteries. They run on various fuels such as natural gas, propane, ethanol and water to transform hydrogen into electricity and heat.

Hydrogen is abundant on Earth, and scientists see it as a potentially inexhaustible and clean source of energy.

Though hydrogen could be explosive, the cell at Palm Garden has a safety mechanism that would shut down the gas line if it sensed that hydrogen was beginning to leak, Thomas said.

Hundreds of fuel cells have also been installed worldwide at hospitals, nursing homes, hotels, office buildings, schools - even an airport terminal.

Plug Power is one of several fuel cell manufacturers in the United States and has dozens of the devices in operation nationwide, mostly in Northern states, according to Progress Energy.

The fuel cell at the Largo nursing facility cost Progress Energy $14,000 to install, officials said. Natural gas to run it costs the company a couple of hundred dollars a month.

The cell is constantly relaying information on its operation to Power Plug headquarters, Thomas said. Scientists hope that data will help them make the technology more efficient and less expensive.

"The technology has come a long way, and it still has a long way to go," Williams said. "These projects help us put these ideas into a real-life situation and test them out."

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]