The Department of Energy has initiated this program to advance electric utility cell stack technology and to reduce cell stack cost. The cell stack has a nominal 10-ft/sup 2/ active area and operates at 120 psia/405/sup 0/F with an initial average cell performance goal of 0.745 volts at 232 ASF. The program comprises six parallel phases, which culminate in a full-height, 10-ft/sup 2/ stack verification test. Phase I provides the information and services needed to manage the effort, including definition of the prototype commercial power plant. Phase II develops the technical base for long-term improvements to the cell stack. Phase III develops materials and processing techniques for cell stack components incorporating the best available technology. Phase IV provides the design of hardware and conceptual processing layouts, and updates the power plant definition of Phase I to reflect the results of Phases II and III. Phase V manufactures the hardware to verify the achievements of Phases II and III, and analyzes the cost of this hardware. Phase VI tests the cell stacks assembled from the hardware of Phase V to assess the state of development. Progress is reported. (WHK)