Last month Elcogen CEO Enn Õunpuu attended the Global Forum on Energy Security in Beijing.
The Forum is an annual by-invitation-only conference held in Beijing with the goal of promoting research and information exchanges on energy security among think tanks, government officials, diplomats and industry leaders.
The Forum is a joint effort of the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics (IQTE) at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the United States Energy Security Council (USESC) and the China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC). Since its inaugural conference in 2012, the Global Forum on Energy Security has become China’s premier international platform for deliberations on the changing global energy landscape and China’s role in global energy security.
China is the second largest economy in the world. Due to rapid economic growth, the country has encountered big environmental challenges. China’s new five-year plan includes green and low-carbon developments, which open opportunities to Finnish companies.
The main topic of the Forum was “Energy in transition: Toward collective energy security”. Mr. Õunpuu participated during the “Smart Technology, Smart Energy” presentation, in which he stressed the importance of fuel cells to keep up with predicted the 58% increase in global consumer power demand by 2040.
“There is no other technology which can beat fuel cells in terms of conversion efficiency.
Combined with solid oxide fuel cells’ fuel flexibility and environmental friendliness we find fuel cells, particularly solid oxide fuel cells, to be the future of the distributed power generation.”
Solid oxide fuel cells are universal technology. Due to high efficiency and fuel flexibility it can be used in stationary power and heat production, both small scale residential and large scale commercial and industrial applications. In transportation, as auxiliary power units or range extenders for trucks or passenger cars as an example. Solid oxide fuel cells are not only the most efficient power generation technology, but also most efficient technology for electrolysis to be used as a wind and solar power storage technology
Elcogen is currently the only company in the world, who can commercially produce ceramic solid oxide fuel cells working with high efficiency at 650C.
Lower operating temperature is one of the most important features. It allows to use common grade steel instead of special alloys in stack and significantly reduce material and component costs at system level. This in combination enables total fuel cell system cost reduction to commercially feasible level.
