Volume 2: Controls, Diagnostics and Instrumentation; Cycle Innovations; Electric Power
DOI: 10.1115/gt2008-51367
Full text: Unavailable
Some hybrid methanol fuelled SOFC-GT power cycles including a few innovative features are analyzed, compared and discussed. The low reforming temperature of methanol allows high heat recovery from the exhaust of hybrid fuel cell gas turbine cycles, which produces high overall efficiency. Different layouts of hybrid SOFC-GT cycles are presented and discussed, including the possibility of coupling the GT to a bottoming steam plant to further improve the overall performance. A target 10 MW GT size is taken as a reference, coupled to different possible SOFC sizes. The modeling of power cycles, reactors and SOFC is done with author-developed codes. The results show that the most efficient solutions are those considering pressurized fuel cells, which partially replace the GT combustor. Cycles with atmospheric fuel cells placed downstream of the gas turbine are also investigated. In both cases, very interesting levels of efficiency are achieved, ranging from 55 to more than 73%.