Santa Clara Demonstration Status
Fuel Cell Engineering Corporation (FCE) is in the fourth year of a DOE Cooperative Agreement Program (private-sector cost-shared) aimed at the demonstration of ERC's direct carbonate fuel cell (DFC) technology at full scale. FCE is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Research Corporation (ERC), which has been pursuing the development of the DFC for commercialization near the end of this decade. The DFC produces power directly from hydrocarbon fuels electrochemically, without the need for external reforming or intermediate mechanical conversion steps. As a result, the DFC has the potential to achieve very high efficiency with very low levels of environmental emissions. Modular DFC power plants, which can be shop-fabricated and sited near the user, are ideally suited for distributed generation, cogeneration, industrial, and defense applications. This project is an integral part of the ERC effort to commercialize the technology to serve these applications. Potential users of the commercial DFC power plant under development at ERC will require that the technology be demonstrated at or near the full scale of the commercial products. The objective of the Santa Clara Demonstration Project (SCDP) is to provide the first such demonstration of the technology. The approach ERC has taken in the commercialization of the DFC is described in detail elsewhere [1]. Briefly, an aggressive core technology development program is in place which is focused by ongoing contact with customers and vendors to optimize the design of the commercial power plant. ERC has selected a 2.85 MW power plant unit for initial market entry. Two ERC subsidiaries are supporting the commercialization effort: The Fuel Cell Manufacturing Corporation (FCMC) and the Fuel Cell Engineering Corporation (FCE). FCMC manufactures carbonate stacks and multi-stack modules, currently from its manufacturing facility in Torrington, CT. FCE is responsible for power plant design, integration of all subsystems, sales/marketing, and client services. The commercial product specifications have been developed by working closely with the Fuel Cell Commercialization Group (FCCG). FCCG members include municipal utilities, rural electric co-ops, and investor owned utilities who have expressed interest in being the initial purchasers of the first commercial DFC power plants. The utility participants in the SCDP have been drawn from the membership of FCCG. FCE is serving as the prime contractor for the design, construction, and testing of the SCDP Plant, and FCMC has manufactured the multi-stack submodules used in the DC power section of the plant. Fluor Daniel Inc. (FDI) served as the architect-engineer for the design and construction of the plant, and also provided support to the design of the multi-stack submodules. FDI is also assisting the ERC companies in commercial power plant design.
- Research Organization:
- National Energy Technology Lab., Pittsburgh, PA, and Morgantown, WV (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC21-92MC29237
- OSTI ID:
- 16042
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/MC/29237-97/C0758; CONF-; ON: DE97051823; TRN: US200508%%331
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Fuel Cells '96 Review Meeting, Morgantown, WV (US), 08/20/1996--08/21/1996; Other Information: Supercedes report DE97051823; PBD: 1 Aug 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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