New Energies, new possibilities

APRIL 8, 2022 EMILIANO BELLINI

Image: Bosch

 

Germany's Bosch has developed a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system for commercial and industrial applications and is preparing a production ramp-up in 2024. The SOFC system can run on natural gas, biomethane, hydrogen or different blendings, with an electrical efficiency of more than 60% and an overall efficiency of more than 85%.

“Our SOFC system is primarily used to produce electrical energy but can also produce thermal energy at temperature levels that can be used for heating or cooling,” Marcus Spickermann, senior vice president of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) at Bosch, told pv magazine. “We are running several pilot projects at the moment, and we are preparing for the market entry in 2024, when we will start with an annual production volume of 200 MW per year.”

The current prototype machines have a target power output of 10 kW electricity supply. They also produce up to 3 kW of thermal energy.

 

“We are currently planning to increase the capacity of the system, as our plan is to offer the device mainly in the commercial and industrial segment,” Spickermann said.

The modular SOFC units can be combined to a cascade or cluster that forms a decentral energy supply system and are designed as connected devices that are part of the Internet of Things. In the future, it will be possible to connect SOFC clusters to virtual power plants that reach high power capacities in the megawatt range.

“When these machines are linked together, and the power grid fails, their resilience has a value that many investors may be happy to recognize,” Wayne-Daniel Kern, vice president of SOFC at Bosch, told pv magazine.

 

The fuel cell unit also produces thermal energy at temperature levels that can be used for heating or cooling.

“The heat coming out of the system has a temperature of around 200 Celsius degrees, an optimal level to reutilize it to heat buildings or reconvert it into cooling for use cases in data centers,” Kern said. “This heat can be an efficient add-on supply to a building's existing heat supply system. The machines are primarily intended at producing electricity, but making use of the heat supply helps reduce the costs of ownership.”

When commercial production is launched, the product may have a payback time of between five and six years, so by that time it will become very attractive, said Kern. Bosch aims to produce the fuel cell units on a large scale.

“We are not targeting a niche market, we are a mass manufacturing company,” Kern said. “We know how to industrialize and produce thousands of machines.”

In Germany, Bosch already operates around 50 SOFC pilot installations at its own sites in Bamberg, Homburg, Renningen, Salzgitter, Schwieberdingen, Stuttgart-Feuerbach, and Wernau. Its first pilots are running at customer locations such as Stadtwerke Bamberg. This SOFC unit supplies power to the surrounding area and the heat is used at a nearby bakery.

In preparation of the production ramp-up in 2024, further pilot projects will follow in order to prove the capabilities of the SOFC units. The company will develop a series of products that meet custome requirements in different use scenarios such as buildings, industrial applications, distributed energy supply systems (microgrids), and data centers.

 

Bosch unveils hydrogen-compatible stationary fuel cell system – pv magazine International (pv-magazine.com)

 

Bosch unveils hydrogen-compatible stationary fuel cell system

Bosch's new solid oxide fuel cell prototype has an electrical efficiency of more than 60% and an overall efficiency above 85%. It also has a targeted power output of 10 kW and can produce up to 3 kW of thermal energy.

www.pv-magazine.com

 

Robert Bosch GmbH plans to spend several hundred million euros to make fuel cells with technology from Ceres Power Holdings Plc. in the U.K.

The move will see the German automotive-parts supplier develop a manufacturing capacity of 200 megawatts per year of fuel cells by 2024 for the niche technology that’s so far mostly been deployed in the U.S. and Asia, Ceres said in a statement.

The technology could form part of a growing trend to find ways to provide dependable, low-carbon power generation to complement intermittent renewable sources.

Bosch, which owns about 18% of Ceres, agreed to use the technology after conducting a roughly two-year pilot phase. The 200 megawatts of production will be spread out between factories in Bamberg, Wernau and Homburg. Ceres said it expects to make around 23 million pounds ($30.5 million) on the deal from 2021 to 2023.

Shares in Ceres soared as much as 12% in London on the news.

While most fuel cells in the world are used for vehicles, there is a growing market to use them for power generation as well. The market for stationary fuel cell applications grew to 240 megawatts in 2018, up from 148 megawatts in 2014, according to BloombergNEF.

The technology marketed by Ceres can use either natural gas or hydrogen. With natural gas as the fuel, the machine separates out the hydrogen first before using it to make electricity.

That means the machines could be plugged into the gas grid to deploy for flexible power generation now and later be switched to run on hydrogen produced from renewable power as that becomes cheaper and more widely available.

“If you think that to meet our carbon targets we have to electrify most of society, you’re going to need flexible power generation that can do that in a net zero way and that’s exactly what fuel cells do,” said Phil Caldwell, Ceres Power’s chief executive officer.

Bosch said it sees a variety of applications for the fuel cells such as in cities, factories, data centers and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

When a company the size of Bosch is poised to release a new technology, it’s usually something to take seriously. Tier-one suppliers like Bosch are at the top of the supply chain to the automotive industry and are responsible (rather than the car manufacturers) for introducing much of the technology that makes all vehicles tick.

Bosch recently announced plans to start production of hydrogen fuel cell powertrains between 2022 and 2023, focusing initially on trucks. Once these are established in heavy vehicles, smaller-scale versions for cars can follow. Fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen from the air to electricity, heat and water, and using hydrogen produced from renewable energy makes the operation of a fuel cell vehicle carbon-neutral. Heavy trucks are a good starting point for the technology because batteries big enough to provide sufficient range would be huge in volume and weight, not to mention incredibly expensive.

Hydrogen has a high energy density and, because it’s stored as a compressed gas in a fuel cell vehicle, its quantity is measured by weight, rather than volume. One kilogram of hydrogen contains about the same amount of energy as 3.3 litres of diesel. Bosch calculates that 7kg of hydrogen is enough to power a 40-tonne truck for around 60 miles. That means 35kg of hydrogen would be good for 300 miles.

Given that the battery in a premium electric car today can weigh more than 500kg, it doesn’t take much imagination to work out that a truck battery capable of doing the same would be huge – unless there’s a radical improvement in the energy density of current battery technology.

There’s plenty of debate about the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells compared with batteries, and there are two conflicting schools of thought. One is that feeding electricity (an energy source) straight into a battery is more efficient than converting it into hydrogen (an energy carrier) then back into electricity. The other, to which Bosch subscribes, is that electricity production and demand rarely coincide, so making hydrogen on a decentralised basis to store, rather than waste, surplus electrical energy makes the case for fuel cell vehicles. Bosch believes that hydrogen costs will fall in the medium term in order that running a fuel cell vehicle will be no more expensive than one with a conventional powertrain.

Tests over the decades have demonstrated hydrogen to be safe compared with liquid fuels, too. Hydrogen is 14 times lighter than air and volatile. In the right proportions, a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen can be explosive, but when hydrogen escapes from a vehicle, it rises too quickly to react with oxygen in the air. Hydrogen fires can be over in a flash and might not do much damage, whereas heavier-than-air, ground-hugging petrol fumes can easily cause explosive fires.

Fuel cell vehicles share pretty much the same electric driveline with battery-electric vehicles, so with a combination of both hydrogen and battery technologies, vehicle manufacturing could become more streamlined and increasingly sustainable.

EV batteries still retain around 80% of their original capacity after 100,000 miles, and reports suggest the global storage capacity using second-life EV batteries could reach 275gWh by 2030. BMW UK is working with Off Grid Energy to create 40kWh mobile power sources, while the Smarthubs project of Groupe Renault and Connected Energy is installing 360kWh ‘E-Stor’ systems on commercial sites in the UK and France.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/under-skin-logic-behind-boschs-plans-hydrogen-fuel-cell-trucks

https://ffuelcellsworks.com/news/powercell-receives-order-for-powercell-s3-from-bosch-at-a-total-value-of-msek-9-7/

57 percent of respondents in Europe favor subsidizing RSF

• Electrical powertrains expected to overtake combustion engines by 2030.
• Two-thirds of Europeans polled do not want to live without cars.
• Bosch’s informational campaign on the future of the powertrain is on the web at www.bosch.com/DriveLikeABosch.

Stuttgart, Germany – According to a representative survey conducted in June 2020 by the market research institute Innofact on behalf of Bosch, no powertrain types have lost any of their relevance – whether batteries or fuel cells, gasoline or diesel engines. If the 2,500 survey respondents in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. had to decide on a new car tomorrow, one in two would opt for a stand-alone combustion engine for their primary car and around one in three for their second car. However, when asked what would be the most prevalently used powertrain in 2030, some 68 percent of those polled see the electrical powertrain in pole position, ahead of hybrids and combustion engines. Survey participants acknowledged the potential of fuel cell-powered cars, with around one in three seeing the fuel cell as the future of mobility. “Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed,” says Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector.

Respondents want incentives for all powertrain types

A further question reveals respondents’ open-mindedness toward powertrains of all types: when asked whether they favor incentives for vehicles equipped solely with combustion engines, in addition to the many government subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids, 70 percent of the Europeans polled answered in the affirmative. The number of respondents in favor of government incentives to buy new cars with a conventional powertrain is highest in Italy at 83 percent, and lowest in the United Kingdom at 60 percent. In France, 77 percent are in favor; in Germany, 62 percent. “Incentivizing modern combustion engines can accelerate the vehicle fleet’s renewal, which would also help the environment and the climate,” Hartung says. Just under one-third of Europeans would like to see this subsidy run to at least 9,000 euros. This is the same as the maximum rebate currently offered by the German government for the purchase of an electric car. Two findings are notable: for one, 72 percent of city dwellers in the four surveyed European countries believe the combustion engine merits a subsidy. For the other, the majority (80 percent) of 18-to-29 year-olds also endorse incentives for cars with combustion engines.

Even cars with conventional engines can run in a climate-neutral way. The key to this is renewable synthetic fuels (RSF), which are made from renewable hydrogen and CO₂ captured from the surrounding air. On average, 57 percent of those taking part in the Bosch survey agreed that RSF should benefit from tax breaks. “There’s just no way around renewable synthetic fuels if we want to achieve our climate targets,” Hartung says. “Only with RSF can the more than one billion vehicles already on the road worldwide help contain global warming.”

Can’t live without a car: respondents in Europe are unanimous

In Europe, the status of the car and its importance for mobility is unlikely to change any time soon. Around 60 percent of those surveyed in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. are unable to imagine living without a car altogether. And a clear majority of the remaining 40 percent are only prepared to leave their car behind some of the time. The car’s approval rating in rural Europe is 77 percent. Incidentally, these findings are roughly similar among 18-to-29 year-olds, around half of whom also come out clearly in favor of a car. While 61 percent of those surveyed in Germany and 47 percent in the U.K. cited greater flexibility as the most important reason for having a car, 41 percent of French respondents indicated they need it mostly for work. In contrast, 55 percent of surveyed Italians prefer the car to other forms of mobility that they feel are less convenient. “For the foreseeable future, the car will remain the number one means of transport – and has excellent prospects of becoming even more climate-friendly,” Hartung says. Bosch’s objective is for people to be able to stay mobile in an affordable and eco-friendly way.

The future of the powertrain: Bosch champions electromobility and combustion technology

Bosch aims to make transportation as resource-friendly as possible, and is pursuing the vision of CO₂-neutral and virtually emissions-free mobility in several ways. In its approach to future powertrain technology, the supplier of technology and services is keeping an open mind. On the one hand, Bosch aims to become the market leader in electromobility with battery and fuel cell-powered vehicles. Electric vehicles are climate-neutral if the charging power and hydrogen are sourced from renewables. On the other hand, Bosch is continuing to refine combustion engines to contain global warming and protect the environment to the greatest extent possible. If they run on RSF, gasoline and diesel engines can also be climate-neutral on the road. Bosch expects around one-third of all newly registered vehicles worldwide to be purely electric by 2030. Two-thirds of all new vehicles will still be powered by a combustion engine, many of them as hybrids.

Tags: electric mobility, internal combustion engines, technology neutrality

“ Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed. ”

Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector

https://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/bosch-polls-europeans-about-the-future-of-the-powertrain-respondents-in-favor-of-variety-220096.html