Jan 24 2011
Finnish Researchers from the VTT Technical Research Center have developed a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system that could be used to generate grid electricity.
This is a very significant step towards developing a commercial large scale plant with multi megawatt capacity. According to Matias Halinen, Research Scientist of VTT, it was the first time when a 10kW SOFC fuel stack had been used in a complete fuel system. He revealed that they were trying to measure the reliability and endurance of the stack and also of the other components including burners, valves and blowers as there was no mass market for fuel cell components readily available. Funding for this project was obtained from Tekes, a Finnish funding agency as a part of the Tekes Fuel Cell Program.
The current SOFC model has operated for more than 1500 hours continuously and reliably from November 2010 and produced electricity, which could be consumed by five apartments in a block. This technology is a low emission energy system and could utilize a variety of fuels such as biogas, which is otherwise quite difficult to exploit efficiently. Halinen stated that biogas application could lead to commercialization and development of large scale power plants.
Along with VTT, the Lappeenranta University of Technology had also contributed to the power electronics of the system enabling direct current produced by the SOFC to be changed into a grid suitable alternating current. Halinen commented that a 50% or higher efficiency could definitely be achieved by reducing losses in the current collection and enhancing the power conversion in the optimized solution and components of the prototype.
Source: http://www.vtt.fi/?lang=en