Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) company Elcogen is to construct a production facility in Tallinn, Estonia. Construction on the €6.3mn factory will begin during the European summer and is due to be completed within 12 months. The 10,000ft² facility is set to manufacture 50MW fuel cells and 200MW electrolysers.

Elcogen—which manufactures SOFCs for residential, commercial and industrial applications—already has agreements in place with several customers and is confident of demand, according to the firm. It has commercialised two product generations, operating at a relatively low 650°C, and sold its technology to more than 60 customers globally.

SOFC technology requires less energy to convert between hydrogen and electricity, and therefore has greatly lower costs relative to conventional technologies, CEO Enn Ounpuu tells Hydrogen Economist. “One of the main problems of the hydrogen economy is the high cost of hydrogen,” he said. “Solid oxide is key to bringing down costs and accelerating the energy transition. The technology requires less electricity to produce 1kg of hydrogen, making manufacturing much cheaper.”

“Solid oxide is key to bringing down costs and accelerating the energy transition” Ounpuu, Elcogen

Solid oxide conversion is a nascent technology that has the advantage of being able to operate in both directions—as a fuel cell or electrolyser. When cheap wind or solar electricity is not available, systems can be reversed to convert previously stored hydrogen (or other fuels) into electricity.

“Moreover, as hydrogen is supposed to be one of the main tools for massive energy storage, reversible systems built only with high-temperature solid oxide cells will be one of the main choices for implementation with huge hydrogen batteries,” added Ounpuu.

Alkaline technology—the most widely used method of converting power into hydrogen and vice versa—has an efficiency rating of around 60pc. Proton exchange membrane cell technology—the second-most widely used—has a similar efficiency but different characteristics. Solid oxide cells can have an efficiency of over 80pc, according to Ounpuu.

These high efficiency levels are particularly beneficial in industrial applications, Mark Selby, chief technology officer of fuel cell firm Ceres power, tells Hydrogen Economist. “For initial market entry, solid oxide technologies make sense in existing industrial clusters that have firm access to the grid and high electricity costs,” he said. “If most of your costs are dominated by energy then efficiency has a big role to play.”

The solid oxide cell market is expected to reach $3bn in value by 2022, according to the firm.

The steel, cement and plastics sectors represent a big opportunity for hydrogen technologies because they have no other obvious way to decarbonise, according to Selby. “I think you will start to see a lot of people moving in the next one to four years for initial commercial propositions,” he said.

German firm Sunfire has already deployed solid oxide electrolysis cells in steel manufacturer Salzgitter Flachstahl’s GrinHy project.

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Author: Tom Young