Serious shortfall

Isle of Wight project seems to imply freedom from 'traditional fuels'

The PE article about the aspirations of the Isle of Wight to store 'excess' electrical energy from solar panels in cylinders of hydrogen seems to imply freedom from 'traditional fuels'.

The reference to the final output from a 5kW fuel cell clearly shows that the plan is to replace electrical energy in the home and not that considerably more power needed for heating.

The average output from a large array (25m²) of solar panels on anEnglish home in 2006 was 12 Kwh/day (ref. Professor David MacKay's book “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air"). Assuming anoptimistic three-fold increase in efficiency since then, we have 36KWh/day. The national average for electricity and gas use by the average home is in the region of 47KWh/day. By the time loss of efficiency in the process of electrolysis and fuel cell are taken into account, there seems to be a serious shortfall.

A Etchells, Inkberrow, Worcester

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