On the 24th September 2015, the new FCH JU supported project DEMOSOFC (4.2 million euro) has been presented at Castello del Valentino in Turin. The project will launch the first industrial size plant in Europe able to produce high effeciency energy with solide oxide fuel cells (SOFC) using biogas from waste water teatment 

The European project DEMOSOFC  will focus on the installation in the SMAT plant of Collegno of the first European industrial fuel cell system able to convert the sludge from the wastewater treatment process in clean and valuable energy, thanks to the high efficiency conversion of solid oxide fuel cells.

DEMOSOFC starts leverage from the results of the SOFCOM project (www.sofcom.eu), which has recently ended and was also coordinated by Politecnico di Torino. SOFCOM was born from the need of revamping from an energy saving point of view, the waste water treatment plant that is an essential service for the municipality.

The DEMOSOFC plant will concern the installation of three fuel cell modules able to co-produce 175 kW of electrical power and 90 kW of thermal power, with an electrical efficiency of 53%.

The system will be installed in the SMAT Collegno waste water treatment plant (Turin), where currently biogas is produced from anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge. The DEMOSOFC plant will cover around 30% of the site needs (actually provided by the grid) and 100% of the thermal requirement.

The plant will employ the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology that can use directly natural gas or biogas.

SOFCs are the most efficient and fuel flexible devices among the different fuel cell types available.

Read the full press release here