Coal Based Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology Development

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology has been under development at General Electric (GE) for multi-MW integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) power plants. Current efforts at GE concentrate on three main areas: system design and analysis, stack technology development, and prototype system demonstration. The system design and analysis effort involves assessment of various IGFC system concepts and development of suitable designs with the goal of 50 % system efficiency (coal HHV to AC power). The stack technology development effort addresses issues concerning stack design (including sealing), performance improvement, cell manufacturing and scale-up, and degradation/life under IGFC operating conditions. The prototype system demonstration effort focuses on building and testing of small (3-10 kW) prototypes to demonstrate operation with desired performance characteristics