Smart energy solutions using fuel cells

The availability of adequate and reliable energy sources is becoming more challenging throughout the world. The reasons vary widely from the development of grid not keeping pace with the demand, inherent poor reliability, political unrest, natural disasters, shifts to renewable sources, depletion of energy reserves, and environmental concerns. The communications sector uses a significant and growing amount of world's total energy which impacts both the total available amount of energy and OPEX of the communications sector. These issues are directly related to our industry and our ability to provide services on a global scale. Telecommunications operators need new tools and schemes to manage their energy consumption in order to help balance their OPEX, sustainability objectives and network reliability. This paper will provide an overview and a model framework of using fuel cells to manage a telecommunications operator's energy at distributed sites. Fuel cells are available in many scales from megawatt to a few watts. This paper will focus on small 1-20kW fuel cells typically deployed to support backup power requirements at broadband or wireless sites. Today's fuel cells are intelligent, networked, managed devices that provide capabilities well beyond just backup power to address a grid outage. The fuel cell can be controlled to operate at specific times of the day or to support the recharge of a battery or to match the request of an electric utility for a peak demand usage period. This capability allows the fuel cell to be an integral part of a Smart Energy Solution for the telecommunications operator.