Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell

The Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is an EV tier multiblock that oxidizes gas fuels to generate both power and steam without any pollution. The SOFC is a direct upgrade from the singleblock gas turbines because it offers 100% fuel efficiency after an initial warm-up period and has much higher throughput. The Mk-I consumes 40,960 EU worth of fuel and 100 L/s of oxygen to generate 2,048 EU/t directly and 20,000 L/s of steam for an additional 457 EU/t in a Large Steam Turbine. The Mk-II consumes up to 491,520 EU worth of fuel and 2,000 L/s of oxygen to generate 24,576 EU/t directly and 96,000 L/s of superheated steam for an additional 12,600 EU/t in a Large HP Steam Turbine. The SOFC does not require a turbine in the controller slot which makes it a slightly cheaper and greener alternative to the Large Gas Turbine, although the latter does not require oxygen, has no efficiency cap, and has a variable input fluid rate.

Spreadsheet: GTNH Power Planner 2.9

The SOFC is available in two tiers with the same dimensions and restrictions but they have different controllers, casings, and ceramic units. The glass must be reinforced glass specifically and has no effect on the operation of the machine. The maintenance hatch, input hatches, and output hatch may replace any casing anywhere on the structure. The dynamo hatch is limited to the center casing on the very back of the structure and cannot be greater than 4A. There is no muffler hatch so do not include one. Use the Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector to visualize/build the structure.

Wallsharing

SOFCs may wallshare each of their sides to save on casings, reinforced glass, and buses/hatches. The fuel and oxygen consumption rates are fixed so it is perfectly safe to share input hatches and/or supply both through the same quadruple or stocking input hatch. There is also no issue with sharing the output hatch as long as it is large enough to hold the combined output of all shared machines.

The SOFC oxidizes gas fuels to generate both power and steam without any pollution. The SOFC consumes a fixed amount of fuel and oxygen every second based on the density (EU/L) of the fuel and the tier of the machine, as seen in the following tables. The oxygen is mandatory for the machine to run, but it is only consumed while actively running.

The options for gas fuels are listed below in the following tables along with their densities and consumption rates in both tiers of the machine. The most popular options are benzene and nitrobenzene. Gas fuels above 1,000 EU/L receive an efficiency bonus in the SOFC Mk-II based on their distance from 1,000 EU/L. More specifically, naquadah gas receives a 2.4% bonus for an effective 1,048 EU/L, nefarious gas receives a 20% bonus for an effective 1,440 EU/L, and nitrobenzene receives a 60% bonus for an effective 2,560 EU/L. For reference, Jet Fuel No.3 is 1,824 EU/L, Jet Fuel A is 2,248 EU/L, and high octane gasoline is 2,500 EU/L.

The speed of the SOFC increases linearly up to 100% while the machine is active and decreases back to 0% while inactive. Speed is directly proportional to the power output of the machine and takes 250 seconds (Mk-I) or 50 seconds (Mk-II) to reach its maximum value. Speed decays extremely fast when the SOFC is disabled, the structure is broken, or fuel runs out. Steam is also NOT produced if the speed is less than 100%. View the current speed by using a Portable Scanner on the controller or looking at the "efficiency" value in WAILA.

Power is extracted from a 4A dynamo hatch on the back of the structure. Do not break the dynamo hatch while the machine is running and do not exceed the maximum EU/t of the dynamo hatch, or else the SOFC will explode. However, exceeding the total EU is perfectly safe; the SOFC will not explode if an attached battery buffer or Lapotronic Supercapacitor (LSC) is full and there is nowhere for the EU to go. Any additional EU is simply voided. It is highly recommended to automatically toggle the SOFC with a redstone RS latch to avoid wasting fuel--see the LSC page for a guide on setting that up.

Additionally, the Mk-I outputs a fixed amount of steam per second and the Mk-II outputs a fixed amount of superheated (SH) steam per second which can be used to generate a little extra power in a series of Large Steam Turbines, listed below. Both types of steam have the same conversion ratio so the output of one can feed directly into the input of the next. Electrolyzing the distilled water only returns 41% of the oxygen back which means the SOFC does not form a perfectly sustainable closed loop system due to losses in the oxidization process. SH steam generates 2x more EU than regular steam at the same optimal flow rate.

• The Large HP Steam Turbine generates power from SH steam and converts it to regular steam at a 1:1 ratio.
• The Large Steam Turbine generates power from regular steam and converts it into distilled water at a 160:1 ratio.

If the steam throughput is too high for steam valves or fluid pipes, use fluid P2P tunnels instead. They have no transfer limit and evenly distribute all fluids between all output connections.

The following are some example setups for various turbine materials. These all assume only 1 SOFC but this can be scaled up to meet higher optimal flow rates. Use the planner linked at the top for a complete list of turbine materials and full setup breakdowns.