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Despite the technical success of fuel cell research and development efforts, current applications of fuel cells are limited primarily due to their relatively high costs. Where premium-quality, reliable, and clean onsite power is critical to a business function - for example, at a bank, an airport, a computer data warehouse - customers may be willing to pay $4,800 per kilowatt or more for a fuel cell. However, a ten-fold reduction in the price of fuel cells is needed to enable competitive applications.
The Department of Energy formed the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) with a goal of producing a solid-state fuel cell module that would cost no more than $400 per kilowatt. At this price, fuel cells would compete with gas turbine and diesel generators.
The key to the ambitious cost reductions will be the development of a compact, lightweight, 3 kW to 10 kW "building block" module that can be mass-produced using advanced manufacturing processes. The building blocks would be clustered into a variety of custom-built stacks for a wide variety of stationary applications.
The Alliance is comprised of three groups: Industry Teams, Core Technology program participants, and federal government management. The Industry Teams design the fuel cells, deal with market penetration issues, and handle most hardware issues. The Core Technology program is made up of universities, national laboratories, small businesses, and other R&D organizations and addresses applied technological issues common to all Industry Teams. Findings and inventions under the Core Technology program are made available to all Industry Teams under unique intellectual property provisions that serve to accelerate development. The federal government management facilitates interaction between Industry Teams and the Core Technology program as well as establishes technical priorities and approaches.
SECA is administered by the Energy Department through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The SECA program is currently structured to include six competing Industry Teams: FuelCell Energy, Delphi, General Electric, Siemens Power Generation, Acumentrics, and Cummins Power Generation.
SECA Cost Reduction
To achieve cost targets, Industry Teams are engaged in refining technology and validating this advanced technology in 3-10 kW SOFC modules that can be mass produced, aggregated, and scaled to meet a broad range of applications. This development activity is blending established manufacturing processes with state-of-the-art fuel cell technology advancements in order to leverage the advantages of economies of production (high-volume mass production) and scale. It also requires reaching a full spectrum of large markets, such as APUs for trucks and recreational vehicles--by providing on-board power while the vehicle engine is off, SOFC-based APUs address the challenges of anti-idling legislation enacted in many states and at the same time establishes capacity to reduce cost to enable delivery of large SECA systems to the new breed of coal plants that follow. Additional markets include residential-commercial-industrial power, a wide range of distributed generation, and specialized applications for the military. Producing a common module for these vast markets will create the opportunity for the high-volume production required to reduce cost to the necessary level.
The SECA program's Industry Teams are hard at work on the design and manufacture of a variety of low-cost fuel cell prototypes. Recent testing of these prototypes has demonstrated giant leaps made toward fuel cell commercialization. Manufactured with a scalable mass-production technique, these SOFC prototypes have exceeded all of SECA's Phase I targets for availability, efficiency, and production cost. A typical system demonstrated an availability of 90 percent compared to the SECA target of 80 percent. An efficiency of 35-40 percent was achieved in the small 3-10 kilowatt systems, surpassing the target of 35 percent. This superior efficiency in a small size demonstrates the achievability of much higher efficiencies for larger systems. Most significantly, the independent audited system costs ranged from $691 to $784 per kilowatt--a major breakthrough toward achieving market-competitive costs. These Phase I numbers represent aggregated results across six industry teams. The once distant vision using clean, low-cost fuel cell technology for everyday applications is now within reach.
Fuel Cell Power Density Improved
One of SECA's primary goals is to enable fuel cells to produce more watts of electric power from smaller volumes of materials. Improved power density is needed to make fuel cells economically competitive with gas turbines and diesel electric generation. Several of SECA's industry teams are developing high-power-density SOFC prototypes. A few examples of the power density improvements SECA's Industry Teams are realizing follow: Siemens Power Generation's new corrugated design increases surface density by 40 percent, and its new fuel cell stack design has increased power density by as much as 52 percent. General Electric's prototype SOFC reduced system volume by 75 percent, enabling the power density of the SOFC system to increase by 37 percent. Acumentrics Corporation of Westwood, MA, doubled the power density of its SOFC unit from 2005 to 2006.
Click below for more information about each Industry Team and their progress:
SECA Core Technology Program
The Core Technology program provides comprehensive applied research support in five focus areas. This structure and the provisions in place reduce cost by leveraging resources so that all Industry Teams do not engage in separate applied research programs paying multiple times for the same research done once in the Core program. This approach also ensures that only major issues are addressed. SECA R&D's goal is to raise the technology bar in large strides rather than small steps. Core program areas are also funded by special topics under Science Initiatives, Small Business Innovative Research, Basic Energy Sciences, University Coal Research, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Core Technology focus areas include the following:
- Materials and Manufacturing - Research focuses on improved reliability, improved performance, ability to tolerate any fuel or air contaminants, and reduce cost;
- Fuel Processing - Develop fuel processing technologies that will meet application requirements such as zero water usage, space and volume, and transient capability;
- Power Electronics - Optimizes fuel cell power system efficiency and cost in conversion of fuel cell output to usable DC (direct current) and AC (alternating current) power;
- Modeling and Simulation - Creates design models to determine a reliable operating space and guide manufacturing; and
- Power Balance of Plant - Focuses on high temperature heat exchangers and blowers to enable achieving high efficiency, low cost, and a simple system.
Several recent Core Technology Program accomplishments are noted below:
Research Team Develops and Demonstrates Commercial SOFC Interconnect Material - Allegheny Technologies Inc. of Pittsburgh, PA, PNNL, and NETL have successfully identified and tested a cost-effective interconnect material based on ferritic stainless steels for applications in coal-based SOFC systems. The team's development goal was to use an inexpensive metal alloy to eliminate the negative effects of metallic interconnects on electrical conductivity in SOFCs. With funding and direction from the SECA Core Technology program, PNNL achieved success in laboratory tests with a commercial alloy from Allegheny Ludlum Corporation of Pittsburgh, PA. More extensive investigations are in progress to determine whether, with appropriate surface treatment, an alloy of this type can fully satisfy stringent SOFC interconnect requirements.
High-Temperature Blowers Developed for SOFC Systems - Phoenix Analysis & Design Technologies Inc. of Tempe, AZ, and R&D Dynamics Corporation of Bloomfield, CT, have successfully demonstrated two distinctly different high-temperature pumps and blowers for SOFC systems. Each of the novel technologies successfully separates hot fuel cell gases from temperature-sensitive pump components, such as bearings, magnets, electronics, and motor windings. This work is key to improving SOFC efficiencies, and it supports the achievement of fuel cell systems that can adapt to diverse fuels. The efforts were conducted for SECA under a series of Small Business Innovation Research grants.
Crack-Resistant Compliant Glass Seal Identified - SOFC systems are more robust if their seals can accommodate motion in cell components and recover from stress-induced cracking. The University of Cincinnati has identified a glass composition that does not crystallize at SOFC operating temperatures and remains soft, so that cracks flow shut when the stack cools to room temperature. University of Missouri-Rolla is now working to improve the chemical compatibility of this class of flowable glass and Sandia National Laboratory is examining composites in which ceramic filler particles improve the resiliency of the soft glass seal. Engineered materials systems that utilize novel glass formulations and composite structures hold promise for successful seal solutions.
Cathode Poisoning from Interconnect Chromium Mitigated - Chromium is a common element in cost-effective fuel cell metal interconnects. However, it often migrates from the interconnect to the cathode material, forming compounds that may decrease cell performance. The SECA Core Technology program determined a "chromium poisoning" mitigation strategy through work performed at Argonne National Laboratory, PNNL, and Carnegie Mellon University. This collaborative effort has provided an approach to SECA's Industry Teams wherein chromium transport is slowed by coatings and removed by airflow and cathode structures capture the chromium without significant loss in cell performance.
SECA Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems
The goal of the SECA Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems program is to develop large (greater than 100 megawatts) fuel cell power systems that will produce affordable, efficient and environmentally-friendly electrical power from coal derived fuel. These systems must achieve at least fifty percent (50%) overall efficiency (higher heating value-HHV) to AC power, in integrated coal gasification plants with CO2 separation. As with smaller SECA systems, the cost target for the fuel cell system is $400/kWe or less, exclusive of the coal gasification unit and CO2 separation subsystems.
The R&D work is focused on the scale-up of fuel cells and their incorporation into high-capacity fuel cell stacks. When aggregated together, these larger stacks will result in a fuel cell module technically and economically optimal for use as a "building-block" for multi-MW class central power systems. These building-block fuel cell modules will then be clustered together, possibly along with other power generation modules (e.g., a gas turbine as a fuel cell-turbine hybrid), into proof-of-concept systems.
The proof-of-concept systems must operate on a coal synthesis gas and be designed for compatibility with current or "near-term" CO2 separation technology; consequently, the system effluent gas streams must meet all existing regulations with respect to criteria pollutant and any requirements for CO2 separation. The CO2 capture design requirement is ninety percent (90%) of the quantity of CO2 that would result if all of the carbon in the syngas product (e.g., CO2, methane, carbon monoxide, carbonyl sulfide) were converted to CO2.
SECA Industry Teams are transitioning their SECA Cost Reduction projects into SECA Coal-Based Systems projects and are developing systems for incorporation into an advanced power generation plant. All SECA Industry Teams will continue SECA cost reduction activities through 2010 with the best fuel cell stacks available for delivery to the FutureGen Project. It is anticipated that the best technology from any Industry Team will be available for incorporation into one or more of the SECA coal-based systems projects in preparation for testing at the FutureGen Project. The fuel cell technology being developed by SECA has application to many stationary power markets with high efficiency, carbon capture, and very low emissions. These advances will permit the production of power from coal in any state in the U.S. without environmental concern, ensuring a secure and economical energy future.
Advanced Research
This program supports future advances in the SECA and Office of Fossil Energy Coal and Power programs by developing novel electrochemical energy-conversion and integrated technologies that advance the efficiency, reliability, and cost goals of fuel cell systems beyond what can be accomplished in the next five to ten years. It provides crosscutting, multidisciplinary research supporting SECA Cost Reduction and Fuel Cell Coal Based Systems. Investigative issues include novel concepts, energy storage synergies, and coal contaminants.
Advanced Research Projects include:
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PROJECT INFO
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KEY PUBLICATIONS
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PROGRAM CONTACTS
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Wayne Surdoval
National Energy Technology Laboratory
P.O. Box 10940
U.S. Department of Energy
Pittsburgh, PA 15236
412-386-6002 |
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Samuel Biondo
Office of Fossil Energy
(FE-22)
U.S. Dept. of Energy
Washington, DC 20585
301-903-2700 |
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