Toshiba has been able to develop advanced residential FC technology in a relatively short period. Mr. Shimotori explains the reasons: "First of all, Toshiba has been able to apply expertise from other areas, most notably many years of experience with phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) technology. Second, the FC development program benefited from Toshiba's consumer appliance operations in realizing improvements to key components such as inverters. The efficiency of power generation is also high because the process converts the chemical energy in the fuel (hydrogen) directly into electricity. The heat generated by the reaction can also be used to heat water. This combination raises total thermal efficiency above 80%. In addition to cutting fuel bills, the CO2 emissions of an FC are 30-40% lower compared with the combination of gas and electric power. Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) began a large-scale three-year monitoring test involving 3,000 residential FCs in 2005, aiming for commercialization in 2010. Toshiba is actively involved in this project. Several hurdles remain to be overcome before the FC can become a widely used home appliance. The key challenges are to lower costs and raise durability. Mr. Shimotori projects, "We expect to cut costs by 90% through a combination of optimized design and materials, improved fabrication methods and the economies of scale from mass production." Mr. Mitsuaki Echigo, who is a trial user of Toshiba's latest residential FC, stresses, "Ultimately, the need for repairs should be eliminated completely." In terms of durability, the current goal is to build a cell with an operating life of 20,000 hours. Toshiba is on course to achieve this by 2006, with the next goal to double durability to 40,000 hours, the typical service life of a PAFC, by 2008. Progress has already been made by eliminating the causes of failure in the main cell unit, and work is now focusing on improving the reliability of peripheral devices such as blowers using optimized designs.

Toshiba is testing a wide variety of fuels as the source of hydrogen for FCs, including city gas, LPG methanol, dimethyl ether and various bioderived gaseous fuels. Residential FCs could make a major contribution to resource recycling. Preparing for a hydrogen-based society, Toshiba is also conducting field tests of cell designs that use pure hydrogen gas as a fuel. "In the future, energy generated through weather-dependent renewable sources such as wind or solar power, together with surplus electric power generated at night, could all be stored in the form of hydrogen.

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