Honda HES IV Hydrogen fueling station for the FCX Clarity luxury fuel cell powered sedanHonda HES IV Hydrogen fueling station Much has been said and written about the future hydrogen economy; but the biggest question still remains - how to get the hydrogen delivered to the end user, you. Well, Honda has one answer, its Home Energy Station (HES), now in its fourth iteration. The first one appeared in 2003.
Recently, Honda showed its HEV IV in conjunction with it new fuel-cell powered FCX Clarity luxury sedan that it plans to start producing in summer 2008. Fifty will be leased at about $600 a month to Southern Californians where hydrogen is relatively easy to find. There are currently about a half dozen with more planned in the southland.
The FCX Clarity uses the new Honda V Flow fuel cell platform. It is powered by a highly compact, efficient and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack located in the center tunnel, between the two front seats. Honda's V Flow stack works in combination with a lithium ion battery pack to power the vehicle's electric drive motor. Hydrogen, sufficient for a ranges of 270 miles, is stored in a single 5000 psi tank. While the fuel cell is the vehicle's main power source, additional energy captured by regenerative braking is stored in the lithium ion battery pack, and used to supplement power from the fuel cell, when needed for extra power. According to Honda, the FCX Clarity gets the equivalent of 68 mpg combined fuel economy.
How the Honda HES IV Hydrogen fueling station for the FCX Clarity luxury sedan worksHonda HES IV schematic The self-contained Home Energy Station, developed with Plug Power, Inc., not only supplies high purity hydrogen for a fuel cell vehicle, but also has its own fuel cell that produces electricity for the home with waste heat used to heat the home and its hot water supply. An inverter converts the fuel cell's DC output to standard 120 Volt AC household current. The HES is not expected on the market before the middle of the next decade at the earliest.
The HES operates on natural gas with a steam reformation fuel processor to convert natural gas to hydrogen gas. Because it uses a fossil fuel, natural gas, it does emit carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides. However, Honda says that using HES IV to generate hydrogen to fuel an FCX Clarity can reduce total well-to-wheel CO2 emissions by 60-percent compared to an equivalent gasoline-fueled car. Overall, the HES IV can reduce CO2 emissions by an estimated 30-percent and energy costs by an estimated 50-percent compared to the average U.S. home with grid-supplied electricity and a gasoline-powered car. Honda is developing solar-powered hydrogen refueling stations that would use no fossil fuels or produce any CO2 gases, or any other emissions for that matter.
