Solid Oxide Fuel Cells as Promising Candidates for Distributed Generators

SOFCs have a potential of showing extraordinarily high electric conversion efficiency. Thus they are considered as promising candidates for future distributed generators. However operations of SOFCs are not simple compared with the other generators such as gas engines or gas turbine since SOFCs have to be operated at a high temperature. It is difficult to start up SOFCs rapidly and thus they are not suitable for situations where there is a large fluctuation of demand. This limits the application of SOFCs and the introduction is restricted within a narrow market. In order to promote the introduction of SOFCs to a market, how to make use of SOFCs is a very significant factor. Techniques to operate and control SOFCs are key factors to draw the potential of SOFCs. Therefore information technologies are expected as a powerful tool to improve the total performance of SOFCs.