Bloom Energy Corporation

Ram Ramanan

Matthias Gottmann

David Weingaertner

Martin Perry

Daniel J Darga

Nilanjana Basu

Vijay Srivatsan

Navaneetha Krishnan

Ramesha Guntanur

Paturi Balaji Narasimha Prasad

Ananda Sundararajan

Arne Watson Ballantine

James F McElroy

Swaminathan Venkataraman

Michael Gasda

Michael Petrucha

David Edmonston

Stephen Couse

Vlad Kalika

William David Lyle

James Smith

Andy Ta

Brent D Miller

Pramod Vachhani

Ryan Hallum

Kurt Risic

Michael Groesch

Sachin Parhar

Virpaul Bains

Jakob Hilton

Deepak Shukla

Various hot box fuel cell system components are provided, such as heat exchangers, steam generator and other components.

SOFC hot box components

Various embodiments include interconnects and/or end plates having features for reducing stress in a fuel cell stack. In embodiments, an interconnect/end plate may have a window seal area that is recessed relative to the flow field to indirectly reduce stress induced by an interface seal. Other features may include a thicker protective coating and/or larger uncoated area of an end plate, providing a recessed portion on an end plate for an interface seal, and/or recessing the fuel hole region of an interconnect relative to the flow field to reduce stress on the fuel cell. Further embodiments include providing intermittent seal support to minimize asymmetric seal loading and/or a non-circular seal configuration to reduce stress around the fuel hole of a fuel cell.

Interconnect and end plate design for fuel cell stack

A fuel cell fleet has a plurality of fuel cell systems each connected to a data server. The data server may be configured to obtain operational data from of the plurality of fuel cell systems. An efficiency controller operably connected to the data server and is configured to predict an efficiency and a power output of the fleet from the operational data and optimize the efficiency of the fleet to minimize the fleet fuel consumption while maintaining a desired fleet output power. The efficiency may be determined by a ratio of the fleet output current or output power to the fleet fuel consumption.

Optimizing contractual management of the total output of a fleet of fuel cells

Systems and methods are provided for fuel cell stack heat treatment. An eductor may be used to recycle air into the air inlet stream or to recycle fuel into the fuel inlet stream. An eductor may also be used to exhaust air away from the furnace. The stack heat treatment may include stack sintering or conditioning. The conditioning may be conducted without using externally supplied hydrogen.

Solid oxide fuel cell stack heat treatment methods and apparatus

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ram Ramanan