Experimental analysis on performance and durability of SOFC demonstration unit

A technical description and experimental analysis of a SOFC demonstration unit is presented. The unit contains most of the primary BoP‐components of a complete SOFC system, except of air and fuel recirculation equipment or fuel system compressor. Natural gas is used as the fuel and electricity is supplied to the electric grid. A 5 kW power class planar SOFC stack from Research Centre Jülich is assembled to the demo unit and a long‐term experiment is conducted to assess the characteristic performance and durability of different components of the unit (e.g. the SOFC stack, the fuel pre‐reformer and air heat exchangers). The evolution of absolute voltage drop of the stack over time is found to be of the same magnitude when compared to short stack experiments. Thus, other system components are not observed to cause an increase in the characteristic voltage drop of the stack. Two BoP‐components, the afterburner and the power conversion unit failed to operate as designed. The performance of other BoP‐components i.e. fuel pre‐reformer and heat exchangers were satisfactory during the test run, and no significant performance loss could be measured.