In RoRePower project is to develop and demonstrate solid oxide fuel cell systems for off-grid power generation in certain markets. These markets are such as powering the gas and oil infrastructure in remote regions with harsh climate conditions (from -40 to +50°C) and the continuous power supplies of telecommunication towers especially in emerging countries (e.g. telecom base stations or microwave transceivers). ReRoPower project combines leading European SOFC technology companies and research centres to collaborate and form required phases in the SOFC value chain. This collaboration is focused on the development, manufacturing, and validation of a robust SOFC system and its key components for operation under harsh environmental conditions. The project is driven by industry operating in the field of SOCF systems, it is based on the products and services of industrial partners and motivated by their interest to further develop and commercialize their products and services and consolidate an efficient value chain by collaboration. Industrial partners are focusing on different phases in the value chain and are not competing against each other. Participating research centres support industrial partners to optimize their products towards a joint target, which is a commercially successful SOFC based system and related value chain. The fuel cell manufactures Sunfire, Solidpower and New Enerday, all 100 % Europe-based, will develop and demonstrate robust remote power supply for harsh environments. For the first time, the three manufactures will have a joint development of balance of plant (BOP) components. The common target is to build up respectively to strengthen the European value chain for the remote power specific components and services. Within the proposed project, 15 - 30 remote fuel cell systems will be installed in different countries at the sites of more than five different end-users.

RUBY aims at developing and implementing a tool able to perform integrated Monitoring, Diagnostic, Prognostic and Control functions for production μ-CHP and Backup (BUP) systems, based on SOFC and PEMFC. The proposal is the final step toward the production, installation and commercialization of stationary FCSs with new management functions that will enhance system lifetime, stack durability, availability, reliability and overall performance with improved efficiency. These enhancements will lead to TCO reduction, paving the way toward advanced maintenance service implementation, less cost and increased warranty periods, leading to a better customer satisfaction. RUBY leverages the findings of the last 8 years applied research that contributed to move the FC technologies towards the same maturity of market-available conventional energy conversion technologies. The key-feature of RUBY tool is the Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)-based advanced monitoring of both SOFC and PEMFC stacks, which has been demonstrated viable for its implementation on FCSs. RUBY will finalize the work on the hardware integration with stack diagnostic and control algorithms as well as with fault detection algorithms for BOP. Then, condition monitoring algorithms will be built along with prognostic and advanced adaptive control functions. The holistic vision of the FCS and a thorough knowledge of the State of the Health will be used to evaluate the lifetime of FCS components for improved supervisory control. Artificial Intelligence-based algorithms will be exploited to elaborate grid and FCS data toward the development of control functions for perspective VPP management and future integration with smart-grid. One-year tests will be conducted in real environment for certified μ-CHP and for BUP installed in a controlled real field to concentrate long-term operations in a shorter timeframe. The tool’s components will begin with TRL5/6 and end with TRL8 for μ-CHP and TRL7 for BUP.