DOE Awards FuelCell Energy Contract to Develop 100 MW Fuel Cell Power Plants

The Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the third project selected under its new Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems program. FuelCell Energy, Inc., of Danbury, Conn., will conduct research ultimately leading to the development of near-zero emission fuel cell power plants that efficiently convert coal to electricity.

Under the project FuelCell Energy is to develop an affordable fuel-cell-based technology that will operate on synthesis gas from a coal gasifier. The key objectives of the project are:

• Development of fuel cell technologies, fabrication processes, and manufacturing infrastructure and capabilities for scale-up of solid oxide fuel cell stacks for large, multi-megawatt base-load power generation plants.
• The implementation of an innovative system concept for the design of a power plant larger than 100 megawatts,
• The power plant is expected to achieve greater than 50 percent overall efficiency, approaching 60% of the higher heating value of coal.
• Near-zero levels of emissions of sulfur dioxide and NOx, to the environment.
• Capture of 90 percent or more of the system's CO2 emissions
• Cost of $400 per kilowatt, exclusive of the coal gasification unit and CO2-separation subsystems.

FuelCell Energy will partner with Versa Power Systems, Nexant, and Gas Technology Institute.  This Phase I award is for $7.5 million with a duration of 24 months.  Phases II and III will focus on the fabrication of aggregate fuel cell systems and will culminate in proof-of-concept systems to be field tested for a minimum of 25,000 hours. These systems will be sited at existing or planned coal gasification units, potentially at DOE's FutureGen facility.

In a related program FuelCell Energy developed a new solid oxide fuel cell stack design that boosts the overall power output of the fuel cell stack by nearly 50%. FuelCell Energy also achieved a voltage degradation rate of 1.3% per 1000 hours after testing the fuel cells for 26,000 hours of operation. This breakthrough by FuelCell Energy of greater power from the fuel cell stack while minimizing fuel cell degradation pushes it further towards meeting the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance's (SECA) goal of a market ready, affordable solid oxide fuel cell ready by the year 2010.

FuelCell Energy joins two other research teams—one led by General Electric Hybrid Power Generation Systems and the other by Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation—in leveraging knowledge gained in DOE's SECA program and extending solid oxide fuel cell technology to large coal-based central power generation stations.  The two previous projects were awarded on August 11, 2005 are similar, but have a wider scope spread over a longer period.

General Electric is partnering with GE Energy, GE Global Research, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of South Carolina to develop an integrated gasification fuel cell system that merges GE’s SECA-based solid oxide fuel cell, gas turbine, and coal gasification technologies. The system design incorporates a fuel cell/turbine hybrid as the main power generation unit. (DOE Phase I award: $7.5 million; Phase I duration: 36 months).

In a related program GE developed a prototype of the first fuel cell capable of being manufactured at a cost approaching that of conventional stationary power technology. The fuel cell was successfully tested as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's SECA program. This is the first fuel cell prototype with the low cost potential needed for the technology to become commonplace in energy markets. The cost of GE's prototype system is estimated at $724 per kilowatt for an annual production of 50,000 units, surpassing the SECA phase I target of $800 per kilowatt.  During testing, GE's SOFC system operated at an availability of 90 percent, exceeding the SECA phase I target of 80 percent. A peak power of 5.4 kilowatts was achieved on methane fuel. An efficiency of 41 percent was realized, exceeding the phase I target of 35 percent for stationary applications. Observed steady-state power degradation was less than 3.6 percent per 1,000 hours, below the phase I target of 4 percent per 1,000 hours.

Siemens Westinghouse is partnering with ConocoPhillips and Air Products and Chemicals Inc. to develop large-scale fuel cell systems based on their in-house gas turbine and SECA-modified tubular solid oxide fuel cell technology. ConocoPhillips will provide gasifier expertise, while the baseline design will incorporate an ion transport membrane (ITM) oxygen separation unit from Air Products. (DOE Phase I award: $7.5 million; Phase I duration: 36 months)

In another SECA project Siemens Westinghouse developed a new design for its solid oxide fuel cell stack. Their new design increases the surface area of the fuel cell by 40%, increasing its power density -- the power a fuel cell can produce per a unit area and important for reducing material cost . The new design also increases cell power and permits packing 50% more cells into the same volume required for the old stack design, thus reducing manufacturing and packaging cost. These developments reduce the size and material used in the stack, a significant step towards producing a market ready $400/kW SOFC by 2010.

I believe that these projects represent a good use of fuel cell technology, while I believe that hydrogen fuel cells have doubtful benefits.  These systems when combined with an IGCC power plant increase the overall efficiency to a significant extent. They are legitimate R&D programs that would not be tackled by private industry in the near future.  Whether the rest of FutureGen is necessary is more questionable.  I don't see why they couldn't be tested at one of the many IGCC plants that is being built by industry or at a site specifically built to test these units without all the equipment necessary in a complete IGCC power plant.  The demonstration of an ion transport membrane oxygen separation unit would be a huge step foreword in reducing the cost of IGCC process as cryogenic oxygen separation units are a very significant cost component of these plants.

Technorati tags: coal, fuel cells, IGCC, sequestration, energy, technology

Comments

[JesseJenkins]

So, as far as I understand the suggested application of these fuel cells, they would replace the steam turbine cycle in the IGCC plant. That is, the IGCC plant would first gasify coal, use that syngas in a gas turbine cycle and then, rather than use the hot syngas to flash water into steam for a steam cycle (via a heat exchanger), they would run the syngas through a fuel cell instead, which is more efficient.

My question is why can't they do all three? Why not gasify the coal, run the syngas through a gas turbine, then use a heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the syngas to water to flash steam for a steam cycle, then use the now cold syngas to run through a fuel cell? Is there a problem here? Does the syngas need to stay hot enough to flow through the fuel cell, making it impossible to do the steam cycle step? That's the only explanation I can think of. Anybody got an idea?

[Jim from The Energy Blog]

They do plan on doing all three, I just didn't go into that detail in my post. They have determined some optimum combination of the three that gives the greatest efficiency.

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