Residential Fuel Cell ENE-FARM

Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd.

System of EneFarm

Energy saving

History of EneFarm

Outline

Description

ENE-FARM is a co-generation system that enables both the generation of electric power at home using a chemical reaction between hydrogen extracted from natural gas and oxygen in the air, and the utilization of heat during power generation to produce hot water. In the case of conventional power plant, majority of the heat generated during the power generation is wasted in the sea or in the air. In addition, a conventional power plant is distant from the place of electricity consumption, causing a significant loss of energy during transmission. On the other hand, ENE-FARM achieves high energy utilization efficiency because it can make use of recovered waste heat during power generation to produce hot water and the transmission loss is reduced by power generation at home. In other words, since the electricity is generated and consumed at a same place, ENE-FARM is an environment friendly system that can use energy effectively. Carbon dioxide emissions from a home with ENE-FARM can be reduced by 1.4 tons a year compared to that with a natural gas-powered boiler. Furthermore, ENE-FARM has a built-in function to generate power in case of a blackout: even if system power supply is cut off because of e.g. typhoons or torrential rains, ENE-FARM provides electricity and hot water as long as ENE-FARM is generating electricity at the time of blackout and is being supplied with city gas and water. For further expansion of ENE-FARM, Tokyo Gas developed a model with reduced size; ENE-FARM mini, which is about the size of a condensing unit of air conditioner, was released in October 2019.

It passed 10 years since the launch of ENE-FARM in 2009. The number of installed units exceeded 310,000 throughout Japan, and 120,000 in Tokyo Gas area. During this period, in order to expand ENE-FARM, we continued to develop technologies to improve the efficiency of devices, add new functions, and downsizing to improve installation. In Japan’s Strategic Roadmap for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, the target number of nationwide installation is stated as 5,300,000 by 2030, which accounts for 10% of total households in Japan. Tokyo Gas will continue to develop technologies and to promote the spread of ENE-FARM in collaboration with manufacturers.