Researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands converted a zero-emission fuel cell electric vehicle into a power plant on wheels, as they successfully engineered and installed a socket on a Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell that serves as an electrical outlet. The experiment is meant to promote hydrogen-powered vehicles as a cleaner source of energy. The idea behind this also links into car owners’ possibility to use their vehicles for transportation only 5 percent of the time, researchers say. Unlike a fossil fuel powered car, a fuel cell vehicle can produce electricity from hydrogen when parked. It is cleaner and more efficiently than the current electricity system and with useful ‘waste’ products such as heat and fresh water which can alternatively be used in homes, schools and offices. The converted Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell has a capacity of ten kilowatt (kW), sufficient to power on average ten homes. With the socket in place the scientists managed to modify the car in such a way that it can distribute its electricity to the grid or directly to a house, for instance to complement the available wind and solar power. Hyundai has tried to push the fuel-cell tech forward for a long time, as the ix35 is already the fourth generation of automaker’s FCEV, following the Santa Fe FCEV in 2000, the Tucson FCEV in 2004 and the ix35 FCEV in 2012. There are currently more than 250 ix35 Fuel Cell vehicles on European roads in 13 countries, according to Hyundai.
According to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in 2012 , fuel cell vehicles could eventually represent more than just environmentally - friendly modes of transport , by acting as a type of mobile power grid . The team has installed an electrical outlet in a Hyundai ix35 , which is equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell , and plugged various electrical appliances into this outlet , drawing the electricity needed from the vehicle ’s fuel cell system . Furthermore , the team has modified the fuel cells , making it possible for the system to be used to distribute electrical power directly to the energy grid , which the team believes could eventually reduce the green energy being produced by solar and wind energy .