A complete electrode polarization model of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has been developed and utilized to analyze the performance of Ni-CGO anode deposited by spray pyrolysis. The model integrated a macro model and a micro model to consider electrode microstructural parameters in overall cell behavior. Three different microstructures were prepared by varying the processing conditions. The model was capable of predicting the electrochemical performance of the different microstructural variations with discrepancy smaller than 10%. It was found that the activation loss was most dominant of all three major voltage losses. The decrease in particle size improved the anode performance due to the increase in triple phase boundary area. The model also showed that optimal particle size decreased with increasing anode porosity. Overall, the work contributed to the understanding of cell performance in relation to the anode electrode microstructure. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.