Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology offers many potential benefits as a distributed generation system in residential applications:
1. It makes use of natural gas available from the gas network to produce electricity and heat, with no combustion: (no PM emissions as hydrocarbon is broken down into hydrogen and carbon dioxide);
2. It has low heat-to-power ratio and electrical efficiency up to 60%, optimal for buildings with higher electricity use and low space heating demand and also for buildings with increasing electricity use and lower heating demand;
3. SOFCs are small and modular with capital costs relatively insensitive to scale.
Thanks to the combination with the HP and optimal control, EGG1 can satisfy the thermal and electricity need of the users and provide excess electricity to the grid whenever possible/profitable. EGG1 is a black box system that provides users all the energy needed, self-optimizing to the specific condition and operating with no vibrations and no noises. EGG1 maximizes the working hours of the SOFC m-CHP during the year, making the use of this solution become economically profitable. Combining HP with SOFC, EGG1 makes it economically advantageous to use the heat pump for heating even in very cold climates. Contrarily to existing m-CHP, EGG1 is dimensioned to cover with the heat produced by the SOFC only the heating demand for domestic hot water, which is limited and almost constant over the year. The space heating is covered by the heat produced by the Heat Pump, which is fed by the electricity produced by the SOFC and for the rest by the grid. Hence while in other solutions a back-up gas boiler is always required, EGG1 is meant to completely replace boilers in households (and cut to zero emissions), thanks to the coupling of the SOFC with the Heat Pump.
The EGG1 technology under development is meant to replace boilers in new and existing residential installations in building blocks. In the light of the recent EU-RES Directive revision, outstanding opportunities for mass introduction of micro-CHP technologies are envisaged, and the expected market potential is likely to increase respect to the one assessed in the past years.
Market potential will be concentrated in few countries, with the largest 3 markets (Germany, Spain and Italy) representing 66% of the considered segment.
