Solid oxide fuel cell combined heat and power: Future-ready Energy

The overall objective of SO-FREE is the development of a fully future-ready solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)-based system for combined heat and power (CHP) generation.

This means a versatile system concept for efficient, near-zero-emission, fuel-flexible and truly modular power and heat supply to end users in the residential, commercial, municipal and agricultural sectors.Beyond the primary objective required by the call topic – i.e. the delivery of a pre-certified SOFC-CHP system allowing an operation window from zero to 100% H2 in natural gas and with additions of purified biogas – the SO-FREE project will endeavour the realization of a standardized stack-system interface, allowing full interchangeability of SOFC stack types within a given SOFC-CHP system.

This interface design will be taken to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a new work item proposal (NWIP) for international standardization.

In such a way all commercial barriers to full and free competition between SOFC stack suppliers and system integrators aim to be levelled.

Furthermore, this interoperability will be proved by doubling the required demonstration period: two systems will be run for 9 months each, each operating, alternately, two different stacks, which will be exchanged between the two systems.

One system will be operated to assess compliance with all applicable certification requirements of a TRL 6 prototype, defining the outstanding pathway to full product certification; the other system will run at TRL7 (demonstration in operational environment) providing combined heat and power with natural gas with injections of hydrogen.

As a final proof of robustness and flexibility, the two stacks integrated in each of the two systems (one designed by AVL, the other by ICI Caldaie) will be characteristic of the extreme ends of the spectrum of SOFC operating temperatures: 650°C (Elcogen) and 850°C (Fraunhofer IKTS).