ZEEP24 powers your house with hydrogen produced using solar

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Solar panels are becoming every more popular with home owners because they not only produce energy for free (in the long term), but any additional energy you don’t use can be sold to power companies. However, Japanese company FC-R&D has come up with a way of retaining that additional energy so as to power a home through the night or during an extended power outage.

The company’s new energy system is called ZEEP24, and it combines solar power, water and hydrogen to create a self-sufficient energy generating unit.

During the day the solar panels produce energy and provide power for the house. Any additional energy is then used to produce hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. That hydrogen is then stored in an alloy which does not discharge any of the hydrogen, meaning it is available to use when required–there is no degradation like with batteries.

The ZEEP24 is capable of storing 1,500 litres of hydrogen at full capacity, which translates to around 5kWh of electricity. In terms of water usage, it takes 500 cc to produce 500 litres of hydrogen. The example FC-R&D give is 1.5kWh of energy giving you 100 watts of power for 10 hours. That’s enough to keep the lights on at least. So, even if the fuel cells containing the hydrogen aren’t filled to capacity each day, there’s still going to be a decent amount of free electricity to use each night. Or, the energy can not be used and continued to be stored until it is required. The beauty of the system is it continues to be of use even when the hydrogen fuel cells are full as the solar energy continues to be produced.

The development of the ZEEP24 is in part a response to recent disasters that have knocked out power. As long as you have access to water the solar panels should keep generating enough power to get you through the night with hydrogen. For normal, every day use, the system relies on the fact no one is in during the day due to work and school commitments, so the ZEEP24 can use most of the generated energy for hydrogen production.

Because the fuel is hydrogen, it takes up much less space than an equivalent rechargeable battery. Not only does that mean the unit is smaller overall, it has the potentially to be fitted into vehicles, or offered in smaller sizes depending on what need it is meant to fulfill.

 

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