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A short history of hydrogen as a power source

Hydrogen power is not a new idea. Electrolysis and the fuel cell were both demonstrated in the nineteenth century, long before cars, aircraft or the grid.

Splitting water

Around the start of the nineteenth century, not long after the first chemical batteries were invented, experimenters in England found that passing current through water produced bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen. That was electrolysis, and it showed electricity could drive a chemical change. For much of the following century it remained mostly a laboratory curiosity, since electricity itself was rare and expensive to produce.

What it would keep running

  • Electrolysis, the nineteenth century discovery
  • The fuel cell, from Grove's gas battery
  • PEM stacks from space and vehicle work
  • Modern battery and inverter control
  • Low-pressure storage for homes

The gas battery

A few decades later, the Welsh scientist and lawyer William Grove showed the reverse could work. His gas battery combined hydrogen and oxygen across platinum electrodes in acid to produce a small electric current. It is widely regarded as the first fuel cell. For a long time fuel cells stayed a niche idea, as cheap coal and later oil made combustion engines the obvious way to make power.

Interest returned in the twentieth century, when engineers went looking for compact, clean power in places where engines and fuel tanks were a poor fit, such as submarines and remote equipment. Space travel turned out to be the place that needed it most, and the money spent there pushed the technology forward quickly.

How it works →
The H2OME loop: an electrolyser splits water into hydrogen, the hydrogen is stored in a tank for weeks, a fuel cell turns it into electricity for your home, and the water returns to the loop.

From spacecraft to homes

Fuel cells powered crewed spacecraft and gave astronauts drinking water as a by-product. Later decades brought PEM technology into buses, cars, forklifts and backup power for telecommunications. Electrolysers have scaled up for industrial hydrogen. Putting both together beside a rural house, with a battery and smart inverter, is the newer part, and it is what this system is in development to do.

Questions

Who invented the fuel cell?

William Grove is widely credited with demonstrating the first fuel cell, which he called a gas battery, in the nineteenth century. Others contributed to the theory, and the name fuel cell came later.

Why did it take so long to reach homes?

Cost, durability and cheap fossil fuels. Combustion engines were cheaper and simpler for most of the twentieth century. Fuel cells were used where their advantages justified the cost, such as spacecraft and specialised backup power.

Is hydrogen power proven technology?

Electrolysis and fuel cells are well established in industry and transport. A complete home system combining them with storage and an inverter is newer, and this one is still in development. Both statements are true at once.

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