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WORLD-beating technology, developed by ITM Power in Sheffield, is enabling new homes to be built in the North East which generate enough energy for others to use.
Eco charity Groundwork South Tyneside and Newcastle is joining forces with social housing developer Four Housing Group to build a number of homes in South Shields that meet and beat challenging Government targets.
Most of the homes will be carbon neutral, but two houses and a block of flats will be carbon negative.
That means they will generate more energy than they need to use for cooking, washing, heating, lighting and home entertainment, without adding to CO2 emissions.
That is possible thanks to pioneering Hydrogen Home technology, which went on show recently at ITM Power's Atlas Way Prototype Production Facility.
ITM has developed a low cost electrolyser, which uses electricity from solar panels and wind generators to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
While the oxygen is released to the atmosphere, the hydrogen is stored in modified tanks, originally designed to store propane and can then be used 'on demand' to fuel-modified gas cookers, fridges and what ITM believes is the world's first hydrogen-powered combi boiler.
The hydrogen can also be used to run a generator that produces enough electricity to provide lighting, boil kettles and power an electric fridge, air conditioning and a widescreen TV.
ITM's Shaun Stancliffe said: "We've been monitoring usage and the plan is to use the solar array we have on site to produce enough hydrogen over the weekend to run the factory for free on Mondays."
ITM has developed special burners for its modified gas cooker that will boil a pan of water faster than natural gas.
The firm also captures the heat from the exhaust of its hydrogen-powered generator to run the central heating in a "show flat" which it has created inside the offices at Atlas Way.
Because burning hydrogen in a generator produces water and nothing else, there are no poisonous fumes, which means the engine's exhaust pipe can be inside the factory.
And, since hydrogen is the lightest gas and rises upwards at 45 miles an hour, the danger of it accumulating and causing an explosion, if one of the hob's burners is turned on but not lit, is minimal when compared to natural gas.
ITM has been told there are life- saving applications for its technology in places like Africa, where its electrolysers could use solar power to produce hydrogen to run fridges keeping medicines at the right temperature during power cuts.
But the initial commercial applications are in enabling developers to meet challenging government energy and emissions targets now, without needing to lay new pipes or wait for the development of reliable and cheap fuel cell technology to convert hydrogen and oxygen directly to electricity.
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Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 24 May 2012
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