There are installations out west where they use off-peak hydro power to pump water from one level up to another holding lake, and then later use that head to drive turbines in the dam. It’s that or let the main turbines freewheel in the discharge, wasting the potential power.
If something is giving you energy, it is either an energy sink (EROEI ≤ 1) or a fuel (EROEI > 1).
An example of an energy sink is an electrochemical battery. It takes a lot more energy to manufacture a battery than what you get out of it. Most energy sinks are simply energy vessels.
An example of a fuel is gasoline. You receive a lot more energy when you burn gasoline verses what was expended to get it.
So here’s the question: is a fuel cell an energy sink (EROEI ≤ 1) or a fuel (EROEI > 1)? If hydrogen stored in a cylinder has an EROEI ≤ 1, then a fuel cell is an energy sink.
With present economics alone your argument is mostly sound (I say mostly because you would most definitely have an easier time putting a quiet fuel cell into a neighborhood than a generator). And that’s one of the few possibilities for fuel cells.
Based on the concept of distributed generation (many small power sources set closer to their load) fuel cells can be deployed in pockets of heavy population where transmission upgrades are too costly to do. There are a lot of areas of the US where population density (DC beltway comes to mind) and NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) issues make transmission upgrades nearly impossible. A quiet localized energy source has the best chance of surviving a NIMBY issue.
Still the cost is too high but the concept is strong enough to warrant test projects. Since the test projects can possibly lead to future economic benefit for the consumer the government provides incentives.
When I was working for Commonwealth Edison, one of their other projects was selling small power plants that could burn a wide range of hydrocarbons - LPG, propane, kerosine or natural gas - so the purchaser could switch based on market prices. They are a mostly nuclear utility, and they had to do as much as possible because of the NIMBY problem of expanding their generation capacity.
Many of you are using ‘fuel cell’ as a static, defined term. but it most definitely is not.
Fuel cells are an emerging technology (though they’ve been around since 1839).
Fuel cells have a higher efficiency than diesel or gas engines.
Most fuel cells operate silently, compared to internal combustion engines. They are therefore ideally suited for use within buildings such as hospitals.
Fuel cells can eliminate pollution caused by burning fossil fuels; for hydrogen fuelled fuel cells, the only by-product at point of use is water.
If the hydrogen comes from the electrolysis of water driven by renewable energy, then using fuel cells eliminates greenhouse gases over the whole cycle.
Fuel cells do not need conventional fuels such as oil or gas and can therefore reduce economic dependence on oil producing countries, creating greater energy security for the user nation.
Since hydrogen can be produced anywhere where there is water and a source of power, generation of fuel can be distributed and does not have to be grid-dependent.
The use of stationary fuel cells to generate power at the point of use allows for a decentralised power grid that is potentially more stable.
Low temperature fuel cells (PEMFC, DMFC) have low heat transmission which makes them ideal for military applications.
Higher temperature fuel cells produce high-grade process heat along with electricity and are well suited to cogeneration applications (such as combined heat and power for residential use).
Operating times are much longer than with batteries, since doubling the operating time needs only doubling the amount of fuel and not the doubling of the capacity of the unit itself.
Unlike batteries, fuel cells have no “memory effect” when they are getting refuelled.
The maintenance of fuel cells is simple since there are few moving parts in the system.
This is one of the claims I have trouble with. “No moving parts” and “simple maintenance” aren’t necessarily congruent. F’rex, light water nuclear reactors have almost no moving parts but are a wee bit tricky to maintain and service.
I also wonder what the effective lifespan of the active components of a fuel cell is, and how expensive they are to replace even if a child could do it with a screwdriver.