In this study, a new microscale simulation method based on the electrochemical effectiveness concept is proposed for efficient calculation of intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs). The electrochemical effectiveness model can accurately determine the current generation efficiencies of thin active functional layers in IT-SOFC electrodes, without the need to place many grid points and solve complex electrochemical reaction/charge transport equations. Thus, the effectiveness-based microscale simulation method is developed by modifying a previous microscale model to include the effectiveness model formulation, and the simulation results for one-dimensional, single-cell performances of IT-SOFCs are compared with the results from the microscale models. The proposed microscale simulation method is shown to accurately reproduce the results of more detailed calculations at much lower computational costs, which suggests that the present method can be useful for developing large-scale simulation models for IT-SOFCs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.