Got any links to a fuel cell? Never seen a small commercially available one. You can't see methanol in daylight when it burns is a negative I guess.

That definitely makes my head explode because that is a really slick piece of equipment. The only thing I can see that concerns me is their "fuel cartridge" actually looks like a plastic jug full of methanol and I think that's not stout enough for a boat though they say it is. But the concept is incredible, the smallest one could totally supply our energy needs for a day without a problem. Didn't see any prices, what do they sell for down under?

[QUOTE=Rockman;15109]Hi,
Here is the link,

[URL]http://www.efoy-comfort.com/[/URL]

In a fuel cell, the methanol does not burn. It is converted to power via a chemical reaction.

I would post this on the C320 site, but they are scared of AGM batteries, so this might cause their heads to explode.��

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD[/QUOTE]

A while ago I looked into importing these for the US marine market. The biggest problem, other than expense (2200 model $6000.00 USD), is that even the EFOY 2200 only pumps out 7.5A of charge current or roughly 90W. Wind and solar can easily exceed this, and for a lot less than half the installed price. The fuel cells also need to be purchased directly from EFOY, and are pretty pricey... Over the long haul at the cost of the unit, the fuel cells and how much current we use on boats it's a tough sell until they can get these up to 20-30A output +........

The fuel cost for these units is quite steep. $22.70 per gallon plus shipping! It runs about $5.00 per kilowatt-hour or roughly $5.00 for every 80 amp-hours of charging. A single 140W solar panel will produce 40 +/- Ah's /day for no additional cost. Oh and when I say PLUS SHIPPING I mean PLUS.

My closest EFOY dealer is in MA and when I priced it out last time for a customer who wanted the straight dope on them I found that shipping an M-10 fuel cell, which is 2.6 GAL, it cost nearly $100.00 to get from MA to ME due to the fact that it had to go FedEX and was classified as Haz Mat shipping. So 2.6 GAL / $159.00 = $61.15 PER GALLON !!!!!!!! That jumps the cost to well over $15.00 per 80Ah of charging.

I recently ordered two Kyocera 140W panels for a customer for less than $300.00 each and a controller for another $160.00.. That is $760.00 for more than double the power of an EFOY 2200. These panels will likely last more than 20 years even in the marine environment and never need fuel or the cost to ship the fuel to you.. Course solar only works when the sun is up, but it is also silent this is why you can also add wind and can often have 24 hours of supply..

Yowza! With our wind and solar we only ever need the generator if we get a couple of cloudy windless days in a row, which last year happened once. So for that price, it makes no sense at all. But regardless, it is still a neat concept and if they ever got the price down to realistic levels there would be a market.