AMTEC powered residential furnace and auxiliary power

Residential gas furnaces normally rely on utility grid electric power to operate the fans and/or the pumps used to circulate conditioned air or water and they are thus vulnerable to interruptions of utility grid service. Experience has shown that such interruptions can occur during the heating season, and can lead to serious consequences. A gas furnace coupled to an AMTEC conversion system retains the potential to produce heat and electricity (gas lines are seldom interrupted during power outages), and can save approximately $47/heating season compared to a conventional gas furnace. The key to designing a power system is understanding, and predicting, the cell performance characteristics. The three main processes that must be understood and modeled to fully characterize an AMTEC cell are the electrochemical, sodium vapor flow, and heat transfer. This paper shows the results of an attempt to model the heat transfer in a multitube AMTEC cell and then discusses the conceptual design of a self-powered residential furnace.