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REliable Advanced Diagnostics and Control Tools for increased lifetime of solid oxide cell Technology

Project description

DEENESFRITPL

Advanced monitoring tool for solid oxide electrolysers

Solid oxide electrolysis cell (SOEC) technologies have an important role to play in the sustainable energy economy of the future. Their high conversion efficiencies as well as their ability to run in reverse mode, so that a SOEC system functions as a solid oxide fuel cell, make them compelling technologies for hydrogen production and renewable energy storage. However, their operation mode involves high currents and transients that cause cell degradation. The EU-funded REACTT project aims to address this issue by developing a monitoring, diagnostic, prognostic and control tool for SOEC systems. The new tool for analysing the electrolyser systems should help increase their reliability and extend stack lifetime.

Objective

Solid Oxide Electrolysis (SOE) and its possibility to operate in reversible mode (rSOC) can play a major role in H2 production at low cost and for renewable energies storage. These operating modes with high current and transients can induce degradation that needs to be mitigated for successful system deployment. Federating the cumulated advances built up in preceding collaborative projects, REACTT, with an established expert team, will realize a Monitoring, Diagnostic, Prognostic and Control Tool (MDPC) for SOE and rSOC stacks and systems. Its hardware platform will embed diagnostics and prognostics algorithms, and interact with the system power converters without modification. It contains (a) an innovative excitation module to probe the stack with PRBS (pseudo-random binary signal) or sine stimuli, and (b) a control coordination unit, interfaced with real-time optimisation (RTO). The latter uses on-line measurements with a constraint-adaptive algorithm that drives the system to optimal operation, respecting all safety boundaries. Together, this approach will achieve to supervise and analyse the (reversible) electrolyser system, increase its reliability and extend its stack lifetime. REACTT will demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by tests on a SOLIDpower (SP) 5 kWe SOE system and on an rSOC x kWe CEA system, both at TRL6. This validation in two different operating modes with two different stack designs will prove the generic character of the developed tools, which can then be extended towards multiple technologies and higher power applications. It will reduce the operation and maintenance costs by 10%; the additional cost of the MDPC tool will not exceed 3% of the overall system manufacturing costs. These ambitious targets will be pursued in close collaboration between 6 R&D (IJS, UNISA, CEA, VTT, EPFL, ENEA and HES-SO) and 3 industry partners (SP, Bitron and AVL) on the whole value chain from tests to systems through hardware and software developments.

Fields of science

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

H2020-JTI-FCH-2020-1

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Funding Scheme

FCH2-RIA - Research and Innovation action

Coordinator

INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN
Net EU contribution
€ 318 547,50
Address
Jamova 39
1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

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Region
Slovenija Zahodna Slovenija Osrednjeslovenska
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Other funding
€ 0,00

Participants (9)

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EC signature date 4 December 2020
Last update: 28 October 2022

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Permalink: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101007175

European Union, 2023