FUEL CELLS

Fuel cells are an efficient, practical and potentially cost-effective way of converting stored energy, in the form of hydrogen or other chemicals, directly into electrical energy, thereby providing a unidirectional link between the gas and electricity networks (see also Theme 3—Power-to-gas). They offer higher efficiency and smaller scale operation compared to gas turbines without some of the capacity and other limitations of batteries. The main technical challenges to more widespread adoption of fuel cell technology are the cost of fuel cell stacks and hydrogen storage.