The accompanying CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions have been identified as a primary cause of global warming and the demand for electricity is expected to rise sharply within two decades. New energy-efficient, environmentally friendly power systems are, therefore, urgently required to ensure a sustainable built environment and also to meet the current building regulation standards. Fuel cells provide a means of supplying electricity and improving the built environment. In this paper, two methods of producing home-made hydrogen are described. The performance of low cost proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells in a building trial is evaluated. The PEM fuel cells have been tested to provide electricity for high illuminating light-emitting diode (LED) lamps in a dwelling. It is found that a small quantity of home-produced low-pressure hydrogen could power the LED lamps for several hours. Moreover, by introducing an appropriate electronic circuit, the power consumption by the LED lamp is reduced with an added advantage of increasing the number of light fittings. The results illustrate the energy savings that can be achieved. They also give important pointers to how the technology can be used safely in dwellings in tandem with other energy saving technologies in future. (C) 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.