Creation and Design of Energy Center

Rural Alaskan communities have special challenges to supply dependable heat and electric power while preserving environmental quality. To help address these issues in a coherent fashion, we have established an energy center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Initially, we will evaluate fuel cells and reformers in a test chamber, looking at both performance and reliability. Later, we will study the integration of the electric and other utilities and focus on arctic engineering issues. In designing the test chamber, we were confronted with a number of conflicting heat balance issues related to (1) additional heat for freeze protection and (2) removal of heat generated by people and equipment. This paper discusses some of the details of how we addressed these issues.