Baxi Commercial is linking up with hotel and hospitality chain Whitbread in a ground-breaking trial of fuel cell technology.
The two-year trial is seen as a vital step towards the wider adoption of fuel cells in the UK commercial heating industry. It is also the first UK-based trial under the European Union's Ene.field scheme, which is contributing 40% of the costs. Baxi and Whitbread are jointly funding the rest.

Built in Germany, the Gamma Premio fuel cell, built in Germany at the headquarters of Baxi Innotech, is one of the first two appliances to be trialled under the Ene.field programme, which will eventually monitor 1,000 installations across Europe.

The unit was installed in Whitbread's Glastonbury Premier Inn this summer. The hotel opened at the start of 2013 and is heavily occupied throughout the year with very high hot water demand amounting to around 3,000 litres per day.

Whitbread is keen to investigate new technologies capable of reducing running costs and carbon emissions associated with hot water production across its very large estate. It is already working closely with Baxi Commercial on the development of combined heat and power (CHP) solutions and Baxi engineers have just completed a full survey of the heating and hot water arrangements at all of Whitbread's 650 premises.

The fuel cell works by extracting hydrogen from the natural gas supply and converting it into water, heat and steam all of which can be used to produce heat and electricity in a process that is almost 96% efficient and reduces the amount of fossil fuel needed to power the heating plant.

Four engineers from Baxi Innotech travelled over from Germany to help with the commissioning of the system, which has now been running for three months showing very promising results.

Pre-commissioning analysis of the hotel and its hot water usage patterns, along with the first three months operating figures, have led Baxi and Whitbread's energy team to predict overall savings of £16,890 over a ten year operating period with CO2 emissions likely to be reduced by 5.8 tonnes per annum.

At the end of the two-year trial the fuel cell and buffer vessel will be de-commissioned and returned to Baxi Innotech for evaluation. The original 500-litre storage vessel will remain in place. Whitbread can then decide if they want to proceed with a permanent fuel cell installation or to replace it with another renewable technology.

Chris George, energy and environment manager at Whitbread, said: 'The results so far are very encouraging. This trial will allow us to make informed decisions based on our own experience in a fully operational hotel, which is so much more valuable than lab-based testing.