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1 October 2004 - Vattenfall announced today that a methanol fuelled HotModule fuel cell had been installed in its Treptow combined heat and power (CHP) station and has been integrated into the district heating network. The electricity it generates is fed into the national grid.
The new feature of the HotModule is that it is fuelled with methanol, which is regarded as the energy source of the future. Methanol can be produced without net carbon dioxide emission to the atmosphere, and can be used for electricity generation at high efficiency, such as in fuel cells.
"We want to carry on contributing to sustainable energy supply well into the future," says Dr. Klaus Rauscher, Chairman of the Board of Vattenfall Europe.
The HotModule demonstration project is aimed at showing that methanol produced from organic waste and biomass can be used efficiently for power generation. Unlike other fuel cells, the HotModule can be fuelled with fuels other than natural gas, as long as they contain hydrocarbons. Such fuels include biogas, gas from sewage treatment plants or landfill sites, industrial waste gases or - as in the case of the Vattenfall Europe plant in Berlin - methanol.
HotModule is a project that is being run by Vattenfall Europe, jointly with the German Ministry for Industry and Employment, the manufacturer MTU CFC Solutions, E.ON and Bewag.
"We can see entirely new possibilities opening up. Many such gases in industry and agriculture now go to waste or, at best, are used for space heating. But the HotModule opens the opportunity for using the gases for high efficiency power generation," says Michael Bode, Managing Director of MTU CFC Solutions, one of the partner companies behind the HotModule.
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