Planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a flat, thin ceramic plate that converts the chemical energy of a fuel into electricity with minimum emissions. Planar solid oxide fuel cell is a sub-type of SOFC operating at 1000°C and offers the highest energy efficiency, unlike other fuel cell types. They offer efficiencies more than 60% when converting fuel to electricity.
Planar solid oxide fuel cell offers a clean, low-pollution technology to electrochemically generate electricity at high efficiencies, since their efficiencies are not limited by the Carnot cycle of a heat engine. These fuel cell technologies have many advantages over traditional energy conversion systems including high efficiency, reliability, modularity, fuel adaptability, and very low levels of NOx and SOx emissions.
The rising application from general automotive industry to portable devices and small stationary appliances, and transportation applications is expected to propel the market for planar solid oxide fuel cell, globally, during the forecast period. The global planar solid oxide fuel cell market is driven by the growing need for high electrical efficiency, increasing biomass utilization, and rising demand from the military, transportation, and small stationary sectors.
Planar solid oxide fuel cell is used in oil and gas carrying pipelines, military and transportation applications. North America and Europe are expected to grow at a significant level on account of the increasing demand for alternative electric power generation technologies and growing preference towards distributed power generation. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the significant growth rate in the global planar solid oxide fuel cell market during the forecast period with Japan being the largest contributor.
GLOBAL PLANAR SOLID OXIDE FUEL CELL MARKET $M (2012–2022)
The global planar solid oxide fuel cell market is expected to witness a CAGR of 11.4% during the forecast period. The global planar solid oxide fuel cell market is driven by the growing demand for renewable and cost effective energy sources. The search for renewable and environment-friendly source of energy would generate the demand for planar solid oxide fuel cell, impacting the market positively in both short and long term. Based on component, planar cells are expected to be the largest segment of the global planar solid oxide fuel cell market during the forecast period. During 2012 – 2015, stationary segment was the largest market for planar solid oxide fuel cell by application.
The key trend witnessed in the global planar solid oxide fuel cell market includes growing demand for alternative methods of power generation and increasing government support. Factors such as stringent government laws coupled with increasing energy prices are the key trends observed in the market growth for planar solid oxide fuel cell. Growing importance of alternative energy-conversion devices are replacing combustion-based electrical generators due to the high-energy conversion efficiency and low emission of planar solid oxide fuel cell. Japan reinforced its goal to create a hydrogen society, with vehicles, homes and businesses powered by fuel cells.
Over the past few years, the government of various countries including the U.S., Germany, Japan, South Korea and China have been increasingly supporting the advancements in the planar solid oxide fuel cell technology by funding projects and research activities. For instance, DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announced plans to fund 16 SOFC technology research projects. Moreover, countries such as Japan and Germany have sponsored large field test programs for SOFCs during the past few years.
An increase in the number of partnership and collaborations have been witnessed in the automotive sector focusing on product expansions and improving the company’s geographic presence. This is expected to propel the growth of global planar solid oxide fuel cell market during the forecast period.
In the recent years, increasing government regulations including the Integrated Product Policy has been implemented to address the environmental impacts of the non-renewable products. Most of the global players are commercializing the development of planar solid oxide fuel cell technology for application in stationary power generation. This would further spike the demand for planar solid oxide fuel cell during the forecast period.
The global planar solid oxide fuel cell market is driven by the growing demand for renewable and cost effective energy sources. The search for renewable and environment-friendly source of energy would generate the demand for planar solid oxide fuel cell, impacting the market positively in both short and long term.
Elongated operational start-up time for planar solid oxide fuel cell are one of the major factors that is expected to hamper the growth of global planar solid oxide fuel cell market. While converting fuel into electricity, the overall efficiency of fuel cell could be around 60% to 80%; however, these cells take longer time to start and reach the operating temperature which may hinder the growth of the global planar solid oxide fuel cell market.
High capital investment and operational cost is also expected to restraint the growth of overall market. Conventional solid oxide fuel cell technology requires high cost of cells, stack and balance-of-plant components, and robustness to real-world operating conditions such as the unplanned fuel interruptions at operating temperature and thermal cycling. Additionally, planar solid oxide fuel cell requires additional equipment to protect the stack from failures or damages, adding to further costs.
The growth of global market is affected by elongated operational start-up time and high investment and operational cost, which is expected to have a negative impact in the short-term; however, the developments and technological advancements are expected to offset the impact of such factors with having a moderate impact in long term
The global market is dominated by major players such as FuelCell Energy, Inc., Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd., Ultra Electronics Holdings plc, Ceres Power Holdings plc, Ballard Power Systems Inc., SOLIDpower S.p.a, Convion Ltd., Delphi Automotive PLC., and Chevron Corporation.
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