Standalone Portable SOFC Power Generator for Autonomous Operation

Since 2002 AVL is working on fuel cells with the focus on mobile and stationary SOFC systems. In 2014 the first completely standalone mobile SOFC power generator fueled with diesel was demonstrated. The system is equipped with all required additional components for autonomous operation like a battery pack and power electronics. During startup, the internal auxiliaries (e.g. the air blower), are consuming energy from the battery pack to heat the stack up to operating temperature. At a certain point the SOFC system starts to produce electricity which is used to recharge the batteries. An external consumer can draw a power of up to 5kW from the system. Short term power peaks (positive or negative) are buffered by a super cap. The operation is automatically controlled by the control unit implementing an energy management system. This enables a very user-friendly operation where the control system takes care of an always sufficient state-of-charge level of the battery pack. The presentation will also give a general status report and outlook of the AVL APU power generator development program.