The main objective of DESTA is the demonstration of the first European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) for trucks. The SOFC technology offers significant advantages compared to other fuel cell technologies because of its compatibility with conventional road fuels.
The project starts with defining the APU requirements for the application of a SOFC APU in a Volvo heavy-duty truck for the US market. Based on test results including e.g. production costs, controllability and manufacturability of two existing systems from AVL and Eberspächer (CCES), a benchmark will be performed by the independent research institute Forschungszentrum Jülich, leading to an optimized DESTA SOFC APU. This final unit will combine the superior features of the individual systems. In parallel, TOFC will work on the SOFC stack optimization.
The consortium is confident that the chosen technology is sufficiently mature to perform well in a truck demonstration in 2014.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) for the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative under grant agreement n° 278899.
The DESTA project's publishable summary report, covering the most important project achievements, is now available in the Public Deliverables section. To get there, just follow the link below.
A video demonstrating the DESTA APU installed on the truck is now available. To watch it, follow the link below.
On June 30th 2015, the DESTA project officially comes to an end. You can find a press release on the achievements of the DESTA project using the link below.
