Wave Issue 0512 3/25/05 Article 6-01

***New Electronic Technology Advances Fuel Cell Development
University Seeks Patent, Shares Technology With Partners
In DOE's SECA Program

Washington, DC

With the U.S. Department of Energy’s announcement of yet another
advance in the development of fuel cell technology, the nation
moves one step closer to the time when all barriers—including
cost, size, and efficiency—are overcome to make fuel cells
commonplace in our homes and businesses.

Researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, working under a research grant managed by the
National Energy Technology Laboratory, developed a highly
efficient converter that can boost low DC (direct current)
voltage produced by solid oxide fuel cell stacks to the higher
voltage required for conversion to AC (alternating current) for
household and commercial applications. The boost is significant
because it provides another technological step in increasing the
efficiency, and reducing the size and cost of fuel cells.

Virginia Tech, which is applying for a patent on the technology,
developed its converter in the Department of Energy’s Solid State
Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Program, created to hasten the
development of solid oxide fuel cells so they could be affordably
marketed for power generation.

Under terms of the SECA partnership, Virginia Tech will offer
each of the SECA industrial teams the first option to enter into
an agreement—legally called a non-exclusive license—to apply the
converter technology to their solid oxide fuel cell development
projects. In a related matter, a private company has expressed an
interest in Virginia Tech’s converter and is negotiating to apply
it to solar, wind, and other renewable power technologies.

Virginia Tech’s device, when combined with highly efficient
switching and digital control techniques, converts 22 volts to
400 volts at 97 percent energy efficiency. The device is able to
boost voltage and reduce 120-hertz ripple current to 2 percent
without the costly, bulky capacitors or additional converters
that are customarily used. The net effect is that fuel
consumption, the size of fuel cell systems, and costs are
reduced, thereby taking a significant step toward SECA’s goal of
40–60 percent overall fuel cell efficiency at a cost of $400 per
kilowatt by 2010. SECA studies indicate that each 1 percent
improvement in inverter efficiency can reduce fuel cell stack
costs by $5–$10 per kilowatt.

As the nation anticipates unbridled growth in the demand for
electricity in the near future, fuel cells are viewed as an
attractive source of energy because they provide significant
environmental, energy, and economic benefits. By producing
electricity through chemical reactions, fuel cells don’t require
combustion processes or the equipment of traditional power
generation. Fuel cells emit very low levels of pollutants when
powered by fossil fuels, such as natural gas, and virtually no
pollutants when powered by hydrogen. SECA fuel cells will also
permit flexible operation on a variety of fuels and will provide
both distributed and central generation options that will greatly
enhance U.S. energy security.

Once their costs are reduced to the $400 per kilowatt level and
efficiency goals are attained, fuel cells can be used as power
generation resources in a variety of ways, such as onsite power
for houses and commercial properties, transportation, and modular
application by utilities. In addition, the flexibility of solid
oxide fuel cells to be combined with turbines as ultrahigh
efficiency hybrids contributes significantly to the
Administration’s FutureGen concept, a plan for the zero-emission,
high-efficiency power plant of the future.

As a key component of FutureGen, fuel cells serve as a foundation
for the Administration’s Clean Coal Power Initiative, a cost-
shared partnership between government and industry to demonstrate
coal-based, advanced power-generation technologies.

www.netl.doe.gov