The SWITCH Consortium met again online for the 7th project meeting.
Another set of activities finished as the project is quickly entering in its final stage. In fact, both Work Package 4 and 5 respectively related to the Design and Construction of Components and the LSM Design and Testing have been concluded.
The system has been assembled, installed and commissioned. The next few months will be devoted to the activities of WP6 and, therefore, the tuning of the operating conditions and switching optimisation, the system testing and the results analysis.
Partners will also focus on disseminating the results and finding the best options to also exploiting them.
Wei Xinyi – researcher from EPFL – presented a poster at the 36th International Conference on efficiency, cost, optimisation, simulation and environmental impact of energy systems, in short ECOS 2023.
The event took place in the week June 25-30, 2023, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) and had the purpose to provide a forum for participants to present new research results and exchange views on performance, economics, and environmental impact of energy systems, their design and possible advancements.
The poster entitled “Environment Analysis of Power-to-Fuel-to Power Routes” reported results related to SWITCH and in particular it concerned environment analysis on power to fuel power routes. The fuels considered were H2, CH4, CH3OH.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, through the Group of Energy Materials unit, is Partner to the SWITCH project and is responsible for the system design activity (WP3), using its multi-objective and multi-period optimization tool to design the heat exchanger network capable of covering all loads and internal exchanges for switching the SOC between the operating modes. EPFL also leads the electro-chemical measurement activities combined with post-test analysis and the LCA and LCC analysis.
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, through the Group of Energy Materials unit, is Partner to the SWITCH project and is responsible for the system design activity (WP3), using its multi-objective and multi-period optimization tool to design the heat exchanger network capable of covering all loads and internal exchanges for switching the SOC between the operating modes. EPFL also leads the electro-chemical measurement activities combined with post-test analysis and the LCA and LCC analysis.
Wei Xinyi presented the results of the LCC analysis conducted during the CH2P and SWITCH projects, at the 243rd ECS Meeting with the 18th International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-XVIII), which took place between 28 May and 2June 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) at the Hynes Convention Center and Sheraton Boston.
On 29 May, the representative of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership were invited to give a talk entitled “The Status of SOFC and SOEC R&D in the Clean Hydrogen Partnership”. During the presentation, the projects CH2P and SWITCH have been taken as representative when speaking of the flexibility to the energy system with SO Cells!
ECS Meeting is an international conference that brings together scientists, engineers, and researchers from academia, industry, and government laboratories to share results and discuss issues on related topics through a variety of formats such as oral presentations, poster sessions, panel discussions, tutorial sessions, short courses, professional development workshops, a career fair, and exhibits. The unique blend of electrochemical and solid state science and technology at an ECS meeting provides an opportunity and forum to learn and exchange information on the latest scientific and technical developments in a variety of interdisciplinary areas.
SolydEra SA is Partner to the SWITCH project and is responsible for the design and construction of Balance of Plant components operating at high temperature. The company develops the Large Stack Module design for reversible operation, continuous hydrogen production, and is involved in the overall system design, construction and testing.
Zacharie Wuillemin presented the SWITCH Technology at the SolydEra booth at the HANNOVER MESSE, in April 2023, replying to the numerous questions of the interested public!
This last wee of March ends with the 6th project meeting of SWITCH, which took place online but saw the proactive involvement of all Partners.
The WP Leaders presented their activities: a good number of tasks are coming to an end such as the LCA and techno-economic analysis and the design and selection of BoP components.
It is now time to assembly the demonstrator and test it, This will be the main activity from now on, together with the dissemination and exploitation of the results.
The Partners will meet again next summer, but this time they will meet in person once the demonstrator will be completed.
The European SOFC & SOE Forum is a high-level international fuel cell & electrolyser event that every year offers a presentation of the state-of-the-art technology.
In 2022, Switzerland hosted the 15th edition of EFCF and focused on “science, engineering, materials, systems, applications and markets for all types of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC), Solid Oxide Electrolysers (SOE) and Solid Oxide Electrochemical Reactors” also addressing the established issue of CO2 emission reduction and reuse.
Solydera focused on the large stack module and system development for SOFC, SOE and reversible operation in industrial processes.
DLR presented the transient simulation and experimental validation of a solid oxide cell module in electrolysis and polygeneration mode.
EPFL reported the results of local investigation of a segmented reversible-SOC.
Furthermore, SWITCH participated with a workshop in the final event of CH2P project, as already written in a this news.
2022 was not the first year that saw the participation of SWITCH project in EFCF. Represented by SolidPower, the project took part also in the virtual event European Fuel Cell Forum 2020, where the development and testing of a 25 kWe Large Stack Module for SOFC and SOE applications was presented.
Abstract: The integration of Hydrogen technologies in different end-uses such as transport, electric microgrids, residential and industrial applications, will increase exponentially soon. Hydrogen as energy carrier allows more favourable energy conversion than other conventional systems and is crucial in worldwide decarbonize end uses. The production of green hydrogen, using RES, is a key area for the evolution of this technology. In this context, SWITCH is a Horizon 2020 European Project that aims to design, build and test an in-situ fully integrated and continuous multisource hydrogen production system, based on solid oxide cell technology. Reversible Solid Oxide Cell (rSOCs) technologies allow to convert renewable energy as hydrogen in the power-to-gas application (P2G) and in reversible mode is able to produce electricity from hydrogen stored, power-to-power application (P2P). rSOCs are really interesting to stabilize the random nature of RES because a combined electrolysis and fuel cell system should be able to switch between the two modes as quickly as possible in order to optimize the integration and the use of RES. However, rSOCs need a complex BoP from the thermal point of view, able to guarantee high efficiency even at partial load mode as well as easy start-up and shutdown procedures. In this work, a Stack Box Module dynamic model was developed in Modelica environment as a dynamic tool for the definition and optimization of BoP requirements. Stack model was validated in SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) and SOE (Solid Oxide Electrolyser). The results of the simulation provide verification of the technical/thermodynamic behaviour and flexibility of a stack box of 70 cells. Dynamic modelling allows to evaluate the effect of the reagent inlet temperatures on the operation and hydrogen production/consumption in terms of yield as well as the transients between the different operative modes. Model has been validated by experimental measurements performed in the laboratory. In particular, the kinetics of the reactions governing steam methane reforming (SMR) was considered from data found in the literature, while the ASR (Area Specific Resistance) value was calibrated according to experimental data. The results of the dynamic model show as model can be a useful design and optimization tool for the SOCs technology.
The researcher Michele Bolognese, from Fondazione Bruno Kessler – FBK, participated in the Conference Modelon Innovate 2022 in Stockholm, last 19th of October.
With the presentation “rSOC System: Modeling and Control Development With Modelica-Based Language“, the researcher wished to present the model developed for the H2020 Projects PROMETEO and SWITCH.
The model enables the evaluation of a detailed system analysis and operation, which can also be used as a design tool for the upscale of the rSOCs technology in different scenarios and applications, and to test and optimize the control strategy.
Modelon Innovate 2022 is a global event focused on system simulation for innovation and product design within commercial industries.
If you are interested in the presentation, you can find it in the publications section!
The European Hydrogen Week is the biggest annual event dedicated to hydrogen with a series of great events all around hydrogen.
The third edition of the event took place in Brussels, from 24 to 28 October 2022, included an agenda rich of events, activities and panels.
Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) attended the event and was present at the Exhibition, an important occasion to give visibility and showcase SWITCH project results!
The CH2P project designed, constructed and tested a novel 20 kg/day SOFC prototype for flexible and multimodal co-generation of hydrogen, heat and power using bio-methane.
The SWITCH project exploits and upscales the CH2P prototype by adding SOE operations for green hydrogen production. The SWITCH prototype will operate in five SOE/SOFC modes and it will produce 100 kg/day in SOE mode.
The workshop ended with a debate on the lesson learned from the two projects and the next steps for technology upscaling and application at Hydrogen Refueling Stations.
The event was hosted by the 15th European SOFC and SOE Forum (EFCF 2022), with the possibility to join both on-site and remote. The event was attended by 54 participants: 38 people connected from remote and 16 attended in presence at KKL in Lucerne.
This project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking (now Clean Hydrogen Partnership) under Grant Agreement No 875148. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, Hydrogen Europe and Hydrogen Europe Research
SWITCH’s researchers Michele Bolognese, Matteo Testi, Lorenzo De Bortoli, Ruben Bartali and Luigi Crema of the 
