Metal Hydride Fuel Cells, A New and Practical Approach for Backup and Emergency Power Applications

The tremendous growth of telecom services has resulted in an increased demand for backup power. Businesses and consumers are demanding continuous uptime and telecom companies must provide extended run time backup power on the order of hours and days. In addition, there is a growing need for power protection to cope with natural disasters and acts of terrorism. Conventional approaches using batteries have issues with life, footprint, maintenance, and weight. Similarly, diesel gensets have issues with startup, maintenance, noise, and emissions. As the backup power needs of telecom companies and their customers have grown, it has become evident that new backup power solutions need to be developed. Metal hydride fuel cells offer a fundamentally new approach to fuel cells that results in a practical, low cost technology with unique performance advantages, including intrinsic energy storage, instant start capability, good low temperature performance, and fuel "hot swap" capabilities. Metal hydride fuel cells use non-noble metal catalysts and can be manufactured using conventional processes similar to those used for manufacturing commercial batteries. This paper provides an overview of the current status and capabilities of metal hydride fuel cell technology, including performance, life, energy storage, and prototype hardware. The benefits of metal hydride fuel cells for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and emergency power applications will also be detailed