Lyngby, 4 September 2006

After more than 2,000 hours of operation of a 4 kWe SOFC unit, Topsoe Fuel Cell and Wärtsilä show operating results, which are in compliance with the technical targets of Solid Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) phase 1 minimum requirements.

Topsoe Fuel Cell has supplied the SOFC stacks, the fuel processing catalysts, and the catalytic burner and Wärtsilä has integrated these parts into the complete system including advanced power electronics. The system runs on natural gas directly from the Finnish natural gas grid and is equipped with a fuel processing system including Haldor Topsøe (Topsoe Fuel Cell's parent company) desulphurisation and prereforming catalyst eliminating the risk of sulphur poisoning and carbon formation.

The SOFC system has already logged more than 2,000 hours of operation and has shown availability figures well in excess of the SECA target of 80%. Degradation has been in the magnitude of 1%/1,000h, below the SECA phase 1 minimum requirement of 2%/500h.

The SOFC stacks are placed in two towers. This stack configuration implies high demands on the system control and power electronics. But after some initial troubleshooting, the towers have been running successfully with the same voltage.

"The successful operation of this 4 kWe test unit is an important milestone", says Erkko Fontell, General Manager Fuel Cells at Wärtsilä. "With this great success, we enthusiastically work towards the next step; a WFC20 alpha prototype with a capacity of 20 kWe, which is scheduled to start up ultimo 2006."

"This test has shown the advantages and reliability of our stack design," adds Niels Christiansen, Technical Director, Topsoe Fuel Cell. "Based on the excellent results of the test, we have frozen our first generation stack design and soon we will initiate production in larger numbers of stacks based on this design."