Elcogen, Convion Develop ‘Solid Oxide Electrolyser System’ To Produce Green Hydrogen

European green hydrogen technology maker Elcogen has announced successfully field tested “Solid Oxide electrolyser system” on an industrial scale delivering green hydrogen at superior efficiency when compared to other existing technologies.

Elcogen, in collaboration with its partner Convion, have concluded a test period of 2000 hours of the first-of-a-kind Convion Solid Oxide electrolyser equipped with Elcogen’s cell technology last week, validating superb performance and good operability.

Elcogen said that the test campaign included both steady state operation as well as 1000 rapid power cycles. System performance was very high with electrical efficiency over 85%, equating to 39kWh of electrical energy per kilogram of green hydrogen produced. In the context of electrolysis, that is 20-30% less electricity when compared with competing PEM and alkaline technologies.

The steam electrolyser is based on Solid Oxide cell and stack technology of Elcogen implemented in Convion’s steam electrolyser system platform. The system was developed in record time based on Convion’s experience in developing Solid Oxide fuel cell systems.

The electrolyser delivered green hydrogen for a synthetic fuel demonstrator, where the final product was renewable diesel. Kim Åström, CTO of Convion, said, “We are extremely happy that the test campaign has demonstrated excellent operability, flexibility and resilience to the fluctuations in the steam supply, and validated superb efficiency as designed. These test results give us confidence that our platform approach for electrolysis is well suited for large, industrial-scale applications for electrolysis and bi-directional rSOC systems.”

Martin Rasmussen, CTO of Elcogen, added, “We are pleased that these excellent results are there as a result of our ultimate and efficient core technology being integrated inside Convion’s electrolysers.”

Elcogen said that the project brought together a group of companies across the entire value chain from sequestration of CO2 to electricity and fuel production, logistics, as well as users of the transport fuels in different segments of transport: solid oxide electrolyser (SOEC) by Convion system with Elcogen stack technology, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FT, by Ineratec and VTT technology and catalysts), and water-based CO2 capture (by CarbonReUse Finland and Andritz technology).