Doubletree Takes Leap Into Future Fuel Cell Helps To Power Hotel

Welcome to the Doubletree Hotel Spokane City Center. You are now part of the hydrogen economy.

At least some of the energy illuminating your room or heating your water was created by a fuel cell dedicated Tuesday right behind the hotel’s banquet facilities.

If you didn’t notice the difference, well, that’s the idea.

General Manager Lynn Ericksen said “seamless installation” of the fuel cell by Washington Water Power Co., two local contractors, and ONSI Corp., the manufacturer, was among the most gratifying aspects of the project.

“They have delivered to the letter,” he said.

What they delivered was the first commercial fuel cell sited anywhere in the Northwest. Its 200-kilowatt output can meet most of the hotel’s needs during the wee hours of the night.

During the rest of the day, power from the WWP grid fulfills the facility’s remaining requirements.

The fuel cell also produces heat used to pre-heat water fed into hotel boilers.

All of the new energy supply comes from a machine that, on the outside, looks remarkably like a cargo container. Only a modest plume of vapor, a slight hum, and a switchbox on one end indicate that anything at all is going on inside.

As explained by ONSI representative Herb Healy, the process works this way: Natural gas enters a fuel processor at one end of the fuel cell. The gas is “reformed” into hydrogen, carbon dioxide and miniscule amounts of carbon monoxide.

The cell itself acts much like a car battery, but creates power continually as long as it receives a supply of hydrogen and oxygen. Water is the byproduct.

The power, generated as direct current, is “inverted” to alternating current in the final stage of the process.

By capturing waste heat, the process is 85 percent efficient.

Also, said Project Engineer Ed Schlect, the units are so clean that the strictest air enforcement au thority in the U.S., which covers the Los Angeles area, exempts them from its air-quality rules.

He said WWP purchased the cell with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Doubletree pays the regular metered rate for power, and leases the cell at a price equivalent to what would be spent on natural gas.

WWP President Les Bryan, who called fuel cells the technology of the future, said working with the technology makes sense for the company, even though electricity from its own generating plants is much cheaper.

Healy said the fuel cell can be a sales tool for WWP and its subsidiaries as they try to sell more energy services outside the company’s traditional territory.

In many area’s, he said, the cost of power from fuel cells is not much higher than that from conventional sources.

“It’s an opportunity for them to get in the door,” he said.

Bryan noted WWP is also working on its own fuel cell, one sized to meet the energy needs of a single residence.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo