In April 2014, GDF SUEZ  Research and Technology Division installed two first individual fuel cells, developed by Baxi Innotech from BDR Thermea Group, in two existing houses located in the cities Haguenau and Munschhausen , in Alsace region , in East of France.

These fuel cells have been installed by De Dietrich Thermique, a French branch of BDR Thermea Group, nearby their manufacturing premises in Alsace.

De Dietrich Thermique has selected volunteer householders whose houses were heated by natural gas or oil boiler, and these equipments have been replaced by pre-commercial micro-CHP fuel cell boilers. These fuel cells produce locally from natural gas heat and electricity for the dwelling, reducing the household primary energy, CO2 and pollutants footprints.

These early adopters have been very proud and motivated to participate in this large scale European demonstration program, ENE FIELD, which aims to install up to 1 000 individual fuel cells within residential market in Europe, by the end of 2015.

The commissioning of the two GAMMA PREMIO of BAXI in Alsace was done between the 8th and the 11th of April. Before it, the removal of the existing boiler and installation of the micro-CHP equipped with the Full Monitoring toke 2 days. During the installation, 2 plumbers worked during 2 days and 1 electrician during 1 day. There were no difficult points during the works.

These two installations started after a 3 months laboratory validation phase conducted by GDF SUEZ Research & Technology Division and its research center named CRIGEN (Research and Innovation Centre on Gaz and New Energies).

GDF SUEZ plans to install up to 5 units from this manufacturer this year. Up to 25 systems will be deployed by the end of 2015 by GDF SUEZ. 

 

All the field trials are fully monitored by the German institute DBI and data will be analyzed by the member of the consortium, to assess the economical and environmental benefits generated by fuel cell micro-CHP, as CO2; primary energy savings and energy bill reduction.