The fifth half-year meeting of the EU ECo project was held at the partner site of CEA in Grenoble, France, a scenic location surrounded by snow-covered mountains and filled with a Christmas-like spirit.
The meeting inherited an atmosphere of accelerating and fine-tuning activities for the final sprint, as the project is in its final phase.
The work package aiming at improving state-of-the-art cells has already finished, leaving improved versions of cells, which in the final project phase have to demonstrate and verify their expected performance and durability features.
The work package dedicated to this verification is taking now the largest volume of activities. Focus is on durability testing at cell and stack level, using different versions of ECo cells and including real-life-type testing profiles, such as test under dynamic conditions. The task of identifying relevant impurities from relevant sources of steam/CO2 has arrived at conclusions, which are implemented in specific tests of their impact on the co-SOEC process. The post-test micro structural analysis of cells and stacks has gaining more attention as more tests have been accomplished and can be analysed in order to correlate the durability /degradation behaviour during test with structural or compositional features. Strong effort is now focussed on identifying cells for the final system test verification.
The identification and establishment of three specific application cases of co-SOEC in combination with methanation in work package 3 has laid the base for a number of analysis, such as LCA and economic evaluation. Already now, evaluations about climate impact for example potential of reduction of global warming have been carried out for different locations in Europe and an article is in preparation.
The dissemination of project results has been continued. One highlight was certainly the successful organisation of a joint workshop: “Route to the Industrialisation of High-Temperature Electrolysis”, at the German Salzgitter AG in September. ECo and GrInHy were the organisers. 40 Experts from 8 European countries, from 9 research and 8 industrial players, exchanged their views on status, progress, and critical issues on the path towards the market.
There is generally a good progress of the project. The final half year will still need intensive attention in order to bring ECo to a successful conclusion and to reach all promised objectives.
As a good tradition, the participants were enjoying the local cuisine between the meeting days and many were able to visit the facilities. Thank you very much to the organisers.