Fuel cells on the farm? Plug Power LPG fuel cell system providing heat and power at New York dairy farm

Diesel Progress North American Edition, August, 2004

While the image of the average farm incorporates visions of corn as high as an elephant's eye and contented cows, the reality--at least for modern, successful farming operations--is much more high tech. Farmers have been among the first to embrace a wide range of mobile equipment technology, including electrohydraulic controls and global positioning systems. And now a farm in upstate New York is testing an advanced form of power generation, a fuel cell powered by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

An on-site LPG fuel cell system has been in operation at Wagner Farms, a dairy farm in Eagle Mills, N.Y., since February. The 5 kW unit has been used to provide electricity and heat for the farm's milking parlor.

Wagner Farms has been in operation for 46 years and maintains a herd of 300 milking cows along with 250 young stock. The milk cows are milked three times a day, seven days a week and the farm produces approximately one million pounds of milk annually.

The fuel cell system installed is Plug Power's GenSys cogen unit, which is designed to provide heat and power. Paralleled to the grid, it consists of a fuel processing module, which in this case reforms the LPG into hydrogen; the power generation module, which uses a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack to generate dc current; a power electronics module, which converts the dc power to 120/240 Vac at 60 Hz; an energy storage module, which ensures power continuity during system transients; and a thermal management module, which removes the heat from the unit and uses it to warm the milking parlor.

The entire system is packaged in a weather-proof enclosure that is 84.5 in. long x 32 in. wide x 68.25 in. high. It has an ambient operating temperature range of zero to 105[degrees]F and noise emissions are less than 60 dB(A) at 1 m.

Since it was installed, the fuel cell system has operated more than 2000 hours, generating approximately 4800 kW/hr and 16.5 million BTUs.

"Plug Power has sited more than 400 fuel cell systems serving a variety of applications over the past five years," said Dr. Roger Saillant, president and CEO of Plug Power. "This installation at Wagner's Farm is important to us since it represents a brand new application for our fuel cell system and it allows us to gain additional insight operating a system in this type of environment."

In addition to Wagner Farms, Plug Power has also installed a fuel cell at Stanton's Dairy Farm in Coeymans Hollow, in nearby Albany County.

New York's 7000 dairy farmers pay nearly $40 million annually For utility costs or approximately $0.33 for every hundred pounds of milk sold. While that expense is less than 3% of their total operating costs, it is an expense that technology, such as fuel cells, may be able to reduce.