Renewable Energy Storage Buffering with Metal-Supported Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells with Rapid Cycling Ability

太阳能或风能等可再生能源有可能显著减少空气污染和二氧化碳排放，同时延长化石燃料储备的寿命。然而，能源是间歇性的，因此需要存储缓冲区来提供足够的可再生能源。固体氧化物电池可以作为电解槽(SOEC)和燃料电池(SOFC)进行可逆操作，与电池相比，它有可能提高存储缓冲技术的寿命，与低温电解槽相比，它可以提高能量存储和释放的效率，因为它们具有较低的动能损失，并且能够使用更大比例的热量而不是电力作为制氢的能量输入。这种热量可能来自电池运行过程中的阻力加热和动能损失、外部太阳能聚光器(如用于太阳能热电厂的聚光器)、地热源或核电站或工业设施的废热。 然而，要提高SOFC的性能和寿命，必须克服几个关键挑战，包括应对风能和太阳能可用性的变化以及比SOFC更严重的性能退化而进行的热循环和负载循环。传统的陶瓷或金属陶瓷支持的SOEC设计很难快速循环，因此SOEC在核电站中的使用更加普遍。然而，金属支撑的SOEC架构有可能促进更快的热循环和负载循环，从而潜在地使SOEC能够用于可再生能源存储。该计划将研究金属支持的SOEC，以了解它们在循环运行条件下的性能，包括温度和电流。将调查和诊断特定于SOEC的退化模式，并将利用对SOEC性能和退化机制的见解来确定策略，以提高具有金属支撑架构的SOEC的性能，使其更适合作为可再生能源存储缓冲器。

Renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power have the potential to significantly reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions while extending the lifetime of fossil fuel reserves. However, the energy sources are intermittent, so storage buffers are needed in order to provide sufficient availability of renewable power. Solid oxide cells that can operate reversibly as electrolysis cells (SOECs) and fuel cells (SOFCs) could potentially improve the longevity of storage buffer technology compared to batteries and improve the efficiency of energy storage and release compared to low temperature electrolysis cells, due to their lower kinetic losses and ability to use a greater proportion of heat rather than electricity as the energy input for hydrogen production. This heat can originate from resistance heating and kinetic losses in the cells during their operation, from external solar concentrators (such as those used in solar thermal plants), from geothermal sources, or from waste heat from nuclear power plants or industrial facilities. However several key challenges must be overcome to improve the performance and longevity of SOECs, including thermal and load cycling in response to variations in wind and solar power availability and more severe performance degradation than in SOFCs. Traditional ceramic- or cermet-supported SOEC designs are difficult to cycle rapidly, so use of SOECs has been more common in conjunction with nuclear power plants. However, a metal-supported SOEC architecture has the potential to facilitate much more rapid thermal and load cycling, thus potentially enabling SOECs to be used for renewable energy storage. The program will investigate metal-supported SOECs to understand their capabilities in cyclic operation conditions, both in terms of temperature and current. Degradation modes specific to SOECs will be investigated and diagnosed, and the insights gained into SOEC performance and degradation mechanisms will be used to identify strategies to improve the performance of SOECs with a metal-supported architecture to make them better suited as renewable energy storage buffers.