Progress in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy's Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Program

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy (FE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Program is committed to developing efficient, low-cost electricity from natural gas for MWe-class distributed generation applications in the near-term. In the long-term, the Program is focused on natural gas and coal based central power generation applications with carbon capture; maintaining cell development and core technology research to increase the reliability, robustness, and durability of cell, stack, and system technology; and providing the technology base to permit cost-competitive distributed generation applications. The program is a unique balance of strategically oriented research and development activities spanning fundamental research to prototype testing. The SOFC Program collaborates and coordinates with other fuel cell programs government-wide, including ARPA-E and DOE EERE's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Office. The progress of these activities, along with the status of the program's integrated systems tests and the roadmap to deploy a MWe-class natural gas-fueled distributed generation system, will be presented.