Solid Oxide Fuel Cell System Development in VTT

Abstract

The Finnish solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) project (FINSOFC) was initiated in 2002 as a five-year project. It forms the core of the publicly funded SOFC research in Finland. The purpose of the project is to support the industry in its development of SOFC systems and components and other possible SOFC-based business to be created in the future. The project is coordinated by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland in cooperation with universities and industrial enterprises. The project is executed in close cooperation with several European partners both bilaterally and within Real-SOFC. The focus is to construct and run a natural gas-fueled 5kWe SOFC power plant demonstration connected to heat and electricity grids. The power plant demonstration contains a stack and all BOP components from fuel processing to power conditioning and grid connections. The aim is also to thoroughly understand the behavior of the system. The subprojects needed to do this are (i) fuel processing, (ii) testing of fuel cells and stacks, (iii) construction of a 5kWe power station demonstration, and (iv) system modeling.