How fuel cells can help cell phones in a hurricane

Hurricane Irene Tropical storm Irene reminded us – as if we could ever forget – how essential reliable cell phone service has become in our lives. As the ferocious winds and heavy rains downed trees and millions of people across the East lost power and traditional land phone service, cell phones became all the more important.

We used our cell phones to check on the safety of relatives and friends, to stay in contact with work, to get the latest news in our communities, look at photos and video of storm damage, order takeout food and even to network socially. In fact, status updates on Facebook and tweets about the frustrations of losing power were made possible by using smartphones that maintained their Internet and cell connections, technology that didn’t exist in the past with hurricanes such as Hurricane Gloria in 1985.

Despite widespread power outages, wireless networks stood up well to Irene. According to a New York Times report, the Federal Communications Commission said thousands of wirelines went down during the storm while 1,400 cell sites along the coast were down, and several hundred were running on backup power.

Backup power for extended periods of time to cell phone sites is critical in times of natural disaster like Irene. We’ve heard of generators and use them in our homes and businesses. But the problem I see with diesel generators for cell sites that we might not be aware of is that they are noisy, produce noxious emissions and require a lot of maintenance and repair because they have moving parts. Diesel also is commonly stolen in some countries, with around 15-30 percent of generator fuel being siphoned off in some developing regions — and as soon as the site runs out of diesel, it goes down.

A better way

A cleaner alternative is emerging. Wireless service providers increasingly are investing in fuel cell systems for backup power. Fuel cells use hydrogen and oxygen, the molecules that create water, to produce electricity with no pollution. We see it as a green alternative that is on the rise. Clean and energy efficient fuel cells can help reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent as well as decrease other toxic emissions and deliver additional environmental and efficiency benefits. They also are very quiet, less costly to maintain and are not targets for theft.

When there is a loss of power for the electric grid, an attached fuel cell system senses the drop in the direct current voltage and automatically starts up, and begins reforming fuel. The liquid fuel is heated to the vapor point, and steam is reformed, and at the same time hydrogen starts flowing to the fuel cell module. Electricity is generated in the fuel cell stack by the chemical reaction between hydrogen from the fuel processer and oxygen in ambient air. The fuel cell can deliver power in about one minute and reach full power in 3.5 minutes, providing 5 KW of power to the telecom site.

When Irene was in full force with high winds that knocked out electrical grid power in one tropical location, a customer of our ElectraGen ME backup power fuel cell system reported the system automatically turned on, providing power to the telecom base station for hours. And members of this resort community never lost cell service.

Around the globe in times of severe weather, emergencies and in countries with limited or unreliable grids, backup fuel cells provide this essential service countless times – without cell phone users ever knowing it, but keeping them happy that they always have service.

With consumers’ growing reliance on cell phones, we expect wireless carriers around the world will continue to recognize the need for backup power. And with today’s energy-consciousness and sustainability efforts, we expect they’ll increasingly turn to a greener and sustainable solution: advanced fuel cell systems.

Just think — the next time you’re in the dark texting friends during a storm, it may be thanks to a fuel cell system.

Kathy Fosberg is marketing communications manager at IdaTech, a leading global supplier of fuel cell systems for backup power to the telecom industry based in Bend, Oregon.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Undertow851.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.