Europe’s leading manufacturer of solid oxide fuel cell SOFC Elcogen is working on a solution for the Liquid Natural Gas-powered ships.
Elcogen is working on the project in conjunction with the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and Convion Ltd.
The technology is being developed under the INNO-SOFC project, in collaboration with the AIM to develop a new-generation long-life fuel cell system that offers higher efficiency than that of competing technologies.
“The new-generation fuel cells will definitely have potential for marine applications, especially in the case of LNG ships,” Olli Himanen, Research Team Leader at the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, told Offshore Support Journal in covering the piece for their project.
Adoption of the fuel cells in marine and other applications has been hindered by the short service life and for their price. The partners in the INNO-SOFC Project, which was launched in September and is funded by the EU and managed by VTT, are focusing on these matters and hope to double service life and lower the cost of the fuel cells. In development is a 50kW fuel cell that will have an efficiency of 60 per cent for electricity generation and a total efficiency of 85 per cent.
Elcogen will deliver the core of the system, the fuel cells themselves. VTT is the project coordinator, supporting the R&D programs and validating the service life of the cells. The project started in September 2015 and will end in April 2018, with a budget of €4 million euro.
