DOE
SECA Industrial and
Coal-Based Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/fuelcells/seca/
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,
In order
to address the issue of scalability and integration with advanced generation
central power plants, DOE combined the SECA cost reduction activities with
the new SECA Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems program. The goal of the SECA Fuel
Cell Coal-Based Systems program is to develop and demonstrate the fuel
cell technology required for central power station applications to produce
affordable, efficient, environmentally-friendly electricity from coal. The new program
leverages the advances made in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology under
the SECA Cost Reduction program, extending coal-based SOFC technology to large
central power generation.
Today,
the most widely deployed fuel cells cost about $4,500 per kilowatt; by
contrast, a diesel generator costs $800 to $1,500 per kilowatt, and a natural
gas turbine can be $400 per kilowatt or even less. (but FC operating
cost less)
The SECA
Program (www.seca.doe.gov) will bring
about dramatic reductions in fuel cell costs, cutting costs to as low as $400
per kilowatt by the end of this decade, which would make fuel cells competitive
for virtually every type of power application. The SECA initiative is
developing a modular, all-solid-state fuel cell that could be mass-produced for
different uses much the way electronic components are manufactured and sold
today.
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, endurance, and cost.
Representative data include an availability of 90 percent, over and above the
SECA Phase I target of 80 percent, and an efficiency of 41 percent in a 5.4 kW
system, surpassing the first SECA target of 35 percent. The demonstrated
superior efficiency in this small size confirms the ability to achieve much
higher efficiencies in larger systems. And most significant of all, the $746/kW
system cost is well on its way to $400/kW by 2010. The once distant
vision of using clean, low-cost fuel cell technology for everyday applications
is now within reach.
Several manufacturers have
met all program goals for reliability, efficiency, and cost including General Electric , Seimens, and Fuel Cell Energy/Versa Power. Some of these companies have commercial
installations operating at over 80%
Siemens achieves major
milestone in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell program
Siemens
Power Generation announced the successful testing of its latest solid oxide
fuel cell (SOFC) technology that incorporates its high power density technology
being developed under the U. S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solid State Energy
Conversion Alliance (SECA). A prototype 5 kW-class complete system using the
SECA technology has operated for 2,800 hours and continues to operate at the
Siemens facility near
Fuel Cell Energy SOFC
program achieves all DOE SECA phase I goals ,
FuelCell Energy utilizes the cell and stack
design of its technology team partner, Versa Power Systems Inc. (
GE and
SECA Industry Team participants
Other
Fuel
Cell Projects in the
Large Fuel Cell Projects Data Base
Fuel Cell Energy, Recent Projects
Combined Heat and Power
Developments in the
UTC Power highly efficient
http://www.utcfuelcells.com/fs/com/bin/fs_com_Page/0,11491,043,00.html
