Tour the first residential hydrogen house!

Renewable energy expert Mike Strizki has invited our group to tour his innovative Hydrogen House.

Date: Sunday, April 29
Location: 26 Snydertown Rd, Hopewell, NJ 08525

Hydrogen is the element that fuels the Sun. Mike has retrofitted his home to convert solar energy into hydrogen gas. The gas provides clean electricity by way of hydrogen fuel cells and can be stored indefinitely.

http://www.hydrogenhouseproject.org/index.html

As usual, on April 29 we'll start at Noon with a pot-luck luncheon; please bring a dish to share. The house tour will begin at 1:00.

Mike Strizki served as Project Engineer for over 16 years with the Office of Research and Technology in the NJ Department of Transportation where he developed renewable energy technologies. In 2000 he took a position at Millennium Cell in Eatontown, where he completed a world range record with the New Jersey Genesis electric car (a distance of over 400 miles on a single refueling).

It was in 2006 that he converted his own home to run on solar-hydrogen power, including a hydrogen vehicle fueling station. It operates by collecting energy from a 21-kilowatt array of solar panels mounted throughout his property. The energy from the photovoltaic panels passes through inverters where it is consolidated in a battery bank used to run a low-pressure electrolyzer. The electrolyzer splits water molecules into the base elements hydrogen and oxygen.

His system stores the hydrogen in propane tanks similar to those found at a typical gas station. The hydrogen can then be burned for cooking and heating similar to natural gas, and can be converted into electricity by way of a hydrogen fuel cell. The only emissions from the system are oxygen and water.

Coupled with his home's geothermal heat system, Mike Strizki pays no energy bills and actually sells the excess electricity his system produces back to the grid at a profit of between $7,000 to $20,000 per year. What's more, he is able to fill the tank of his hydrogen fuel cell car for free!

Though it was expensive to develop the stand-alone prototype, Mike has demonstrated that, in cases of multiple users (such as a cohousing community or a tiny house neighborhood) the price of the system would reduce exponentially per capita. Recently he launched a non-profit organization, the "Hydrogen House Project," which he envisions becoming a beacon for renewable energy worldwide, conducting research and development projects with the latest in solar, hydrogen, fuel cell and other clean energy technologies. The organization will share its achievements with the world through public education, student internships, and private and public partnerships.