Development and Testing of a 5kW-Class Reversible Solid Oxide Cell System

Abstract

A 5 kW-class reversible Solid Oxide Cell (rSOC) system was developed and experimentally investigated at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. The main component of this system is the well-established Jülich Integrated Module, which consists of a 40-layer SOC stack (composed of four 10-layer sub-stacks) with an active cell area per layer of 320 cm². The other necessary system components, such as the evaporator, condenser and blowers are compactly arranged in the vicinity of the Integrated Module. In fuel cell mode, a power of 5374 WDC at 500 mA cm-2 and a maximum fuel utilization of 97.3% was achieved, which resulted in a DC electrical system efficiency of 62.7%. Furthermore, in electrolysis mode, a power of -14347 WDC was attained at 887 mA cm-2. At this operating point, the system’s DC efficiency reached 70% at a steam utilization of 85%.