Recommending Hydrogen Fuel Cell Retrofits for Forklifts in Energy Audit Reports by Industrial Assessment Centers

Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and are located in 24 universities throughout the country. They provide small and medium sized manufacturers no cost energy assessments performed by university graduate students and advanced undergraduate students. This is a win-win situation; the manufacturing plants receive a (free) report detailing ways to save energy while the student receives valuable, hands-on training in energy efficiency. The IAC located at North Carolina State University performs approximately twenty audits per year and incorporates renewable energy recommendations whenever possible. As companies implement the recommendations made by the IAC, there is a continuous need to find new opportunities for energy savings. The inspiration for the hydrogen fuel cell retrofit recommendation came while touring Ballard, a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer, during the 2011 ASEE Conference in Vancouver, Canada. The tour was arranged and sponsored by the Energy Conversion and Conservation division. To date, several hydrogen fuel cell retrofit recommendations have been attempted for various manufacturers. This paper will present the attempts at creating a feasible recommendation suggesting a hydrogen fuel cell retrofit for battery powered forklifts. These attempts will be presented as three case studies each representing a different manufacturer. The case studies will show the calculation of energy savings, cost savings and implementation costs associated with making a hydrogen fuel cell recommendation. Writing the recommendation is also an excellent learning opportunity for the student who matriculates in the Mechanical Engineering department. Writing a recommendation of this type challenges the student to learn about the chemical reaction associated with hydrogen fuel cells, the processes associated with the production of hydrogen gas, and the equations necessary to calculate the electrical usage associated with charging stations. Industrial Assessment Centers Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) were first established in 1976 as an initiative under the National Energy Strategy. Funded by the United States Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program now referred to as the Advanced Manufacturing Office 5 , the program has grown from four centers in 1976 to 24 centers nationwide in 2012. Field Managers at the Center for Advanced Energy Systems at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey oversee the 24 centers. The centers provide small and medium sized manufacturers no cost energy assessments performed by university graduate students and advanced undergraduate students under the direction of a faculty member. This is a win-win situation; the manufacturing plants receive a (free) report detailing recommendations to save energy while the student receives valuable, hands-on training in energy efficiency. As of January 2012, altogether they have performed 15,240 assessments and made 114,298 energy saving recommendations. 4 The IAC located at North Carolina State University (NCSU) 6 was established in 1992 under the direction of Dr. Herbert Eckerlin and continues today under the direction of Dr. Stephen Terry. At any given time, the IAC team will consist of 2-5 graduate students on a research assistantship and 2-5 undergraduate students on biweekly payroll. The NCSU IAC solicits requests from manufacturers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia to visit their facility and perform an energy assessment. Typically the director will travel with a combination of 3-5 graduate and undergraduate students to the site where the team will receive a tour of the facility, an explanation of the process and time to take measurements. The team will then return to the university and prepare energy and cost saving recommendations to be included in the assessment report that will be delivered to the site’s energy manager approximately eight weeks later. The report is also submitted to the national IAC database which is maintained by the team at Rutgers University. At the time of this paper, the NCSU IAC completed a total of 441 assessments containing an average of 7.5 recommendations per assessment for a total of 3,318 recommendations with average savings listed in Table 1. 4 Table 1. Average Recommended Savings Per Assessment; The North Carolina State University IAC 4 Average Recommended Savings Per Assessment Usage Reduction % Reduction Cost ($) Savings All Energy 15,131 MMBtu 7.23% $85,674 Electrical 606,034 kWh 4.93% $26,552 Natural Gas 4,982 MMBtu 15.00% $34,926 Waste $10,425 Productivity $75,733