With its electrolyser stacks currently under evaluation at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (NIL), the company has said its electrolyser technology is expected to lower the cost of hydrogen production by 20-30%, due to efficiency over existing electrolysis technologies.

According to FuelCell Energy, the platform operates at approximately 90% electrical efficiency (HHV) and is capable of 100% HHV when paired with available excess heat from industry or nuclear facilities. The 1MW unit is expected to produce up to 600kg of hydrogen per day.

Micah Casteel, Senior Research Mechanical Design Engineer at INL, commented, “The stack has performed well across a broad range of conditions and unexpected events. In addition to validation testing, our goal at INL is to push the boundaries of stack operation to find out how technology responds in non-optimal conditions to drive improvement. This technology has operated well, even in challenging test conditions.”

The company believes its solid oxide electrolysis technology offers one of the best chances of achieving the US DOE’s hydrogen shot goal of reducing the cost of hydrogen to $1 per kg within a decade.

Read more: US DOE to slash cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 this decade

“FuelCell Energy has been developing and testing solid oxide technology with support from the US DOE with a singular aim to provide low-cost hydrogen and power when and where it’s needed,” said Tony Leo, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at FuelCell Energy. ““We believe solid oxide presents the best opportunities for hydrogen-production facilities to minimise the overall cost while maximising efficiency.”

As for its fuel cell platform, FuelCell has said it offers superior fuel efficiency to relative combustion-based power generation, offering power “virtually free” of NOx, SOx, and particulate emissions, while able to run on a variety of fuels including hydrogen, natural gas, or biogas.

In 2021, the company was awarded $8m in funding by the US DOE to advance its solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology for sub-megawatt, high efficiency power generation.

Read more:  FuelCell Energy awarded $8m in funding to advance its SOFC technology

As the first organisation to have purchases FuelCell’s 250kW solid oxide fuel cell power generation system, Dan Hitchell, Vice-President for Finance and Operations at Trinity College in Connecticut, said, “Trinity is committed to decreasing energy consumption and generating power locally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and peak load demands on the local utility infrastructure.

“The environmental and operational benefits of the FuelCell Energy technology enable us to ensure reliability and resiliency, while realising our sustainability goals.”