Department of Energy and WSU team up on Hybrid Power Systems Research

By Emily Smudde, Office of Research 

PULLMAN, Wash. – Dustin McLarty, Ph.D., in Washington State University’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering received a $678,014 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) to further hybrid power systems research.

By developing hybrid power systems using pressurized solid oxide fuel cells, McLarty’s proposed system design will increase the flexibility of the system during operation and lowers costs while still exceeding the DOE’s efficiency targets. If successful, this new hybrid power system would bridge the natural gas powered energy industry of today with the all-renewable energy systems of the future.

“The difference between a traditional fuel cell and the solid oxide fuel cell is what you can do with it, such as co-producing hydrogen and natural gas,” McLarty explained. “This makes it a technology that works as a generator today and grid scale energy storage for renewable energy in the future.”

This grant is part of ARPA’s Innovative Natural-gas Technologies for Efficiency Gain in Reliable and Affordable Thermochemical Electricity-generation (INTEGRATE). INTEGRATE seeks to build highly flexible and efficient energy solutions to dramatically increase grid efficiency, reduce cost, and add resilience.  WSU is one of eight institutions that received a total of $16 million in grants for energy-centered research projects.