DANBURY, Conn., Sept. 5, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq:FCEL), a global leader in the design, manufacture, operation and service of ultra-clean, efficient and reliable fuel cell power plants, today announced a $7.5 million cost-shared award by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy to enhance the performance and durability of the Company's solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology to attain market expectations. Advancing the reliability, robustness and endurance of low-cost SOFC technology is consistent with the DOE mission of enabling low cost and low carbon transformative power generation technologies. The term of the award is 18 months.
"This award will assist in advancing our solid oxide fuel cell technology toward the long term goal of very large scale coal based systems, while providing cell, stack module, and system refinements which are applicable in the near term to sub-megawatt systems," said Tony Leo, Vice President Application Engineering & Advanced Technology Development, FuelCell Energy, Inc. "We envision sub-megawatt solid oxide fuel cell power plants complementing our existing commercial megawatt class carbonate fuel cell power plants as we leverage our power plant design and manufacturing expertise as well as our service capabilities to target adjacent markets."
This project is focused on performance, reliability, and reduction in cost of the SOFC cell and stack technology through improvements in the areas of cell materials, stack designs, and manufacturing quality. These SOFC technology improvements will lead to verification tests of a sub-megawatt system capable of combined heat & power (CHP) output and connected to the electric grid at FuelCell Energy's Danbury, Connecticut facility. SOFC systems operating on coal syngas, natural gas or biogas can generate clean power with virtually zero pollutants and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly when configured for combined heat and power.
The Company's SOFC technology generates industry-leading electrical efficiency of approximately 60 percent plus usable heat for combined heat and power applications, resulting in total estimated thermal efficiency between 80 and 85 percent. The technology is also fuel flexible, with the ability to utilize coal syngas, clean natural gas, on-site renewable biogas or directed biogas.
About FuelCell Energy
Direct FuelCell® power plants are generating ultra-clean, efficient and reliable power at more than 50 locations worldwide. With more than 300 megawatts of power generation capacity installed or in backlog, FuelCell Energy is a global leader in providing ultra-clean baseload distributed generation to utilities, industrial operations, universities, municipal water treatment facilities, government installations and other customers around the world. The Company's power plants have generated more than 2.7 billion kilowatt hours of ultra-clean power using a variety of fuels including renewable biogas from wastewater treatment and food processing, as well as clean natural gas. For more information, please visit www.fuelcellenergy.com
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Direct FuelCell, DFC, DFC/T, DFC-H2 and FuelCell Energy, Inc. are all registered trademarks of FuelCell Energy, Inc. DFC-ERG is a registered trademark jointly owned by Enbridge, Inc. and FuelCell Energy, Inc.