SOFC stacks have been developed in Australia for 15 years. This paper provides an historical perspective to the various generations of planar SOFC stacks developed in Australia since 1989. From early development that focused on cell and materials development to an integrated stack design that was developed to achieve key product requirements such as thermal cycling. A number of stack technologies have been designed and tested leading to an all-ceramic planar SOFC stack design that will be part of CFCL's first CHP commercial unit. Stacks using both electrolyte supported cells and thin electrolyte cells have been developed and tested. The future direction in stack development is briefly described. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.