The poster reports about the EnSOFC European Marie Curie project, which is part of an industrial effort to design and produce pressurised SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) gas turbine hybrid units for distributed power. With projected electrical efficiencies of well above 60%, these products will be unique amongst distributed power generation technologies of 1MW plus. Cost is the principal hurdle to the successful commercialisation of SOFC units: cost minimisation requires the development of specific technologies and innovative designs for each component and integration of these in a system.A hybrid SOFC system integrating a gas turbine with a SOFC stack involves more than simply the turbine and stack. It requires the design and successful integration of a series of other components and sub-systems into an integrated system. These components and sub-systems are collectively usually called ‘Balance of Plant’ (BoP). Although the term BoP fails to recognise the importance to the system as whole, it is used for simplicity. All fuel cell systems require extensive BoP. These can account for up to 75% of the entire system. To operate effectively and efficiently reliable BoP is required, yet it is the BoP that is responsible for the majority of failures in fuel cell systems. This is especially true of pressurized units where hybrid SOFC systems have to date failed to achieve their objectives despite the satisfactory performance of SOFC stack. The development and integration of BoP for a SOFC hybrid system represents a major challenge to the success of this technology. EnSOFC will tackle this challenge through the provision of a range of skills and expertise in the fields of thermodynamics and thermo-economics, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, material engineering, system engineering, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and numerical modelling by drawing together complementary participants and personnel.
