Comparison between Hydrogen and Syngas Fuels in an Integrated Micro Gas Turbine/Solar Field with Storage

Abstract

In recent years, the use of alternative fuels in thermal engine power plants has gained more and more attention, becoming of paramount importance to overcome the use of fuels from fossil sources and to reduce polluting emissions. The present work deals with the analysis of the response to two different gas fuels—i.e., hydrogen and a syngas from agriculture product—of a 30 kW micro gas turbine integrated with a solar field. The solar field included a thermal storage system to partially cover loading requests during night hours, reducing fuel demand. Additionally, a Heat Recovery Unit was included in the plant considered and the whole plant was simulated by Thermoflex® code. Thermodynamics analysis was performed on hour-to-hour basis, for a given day as well as for 12 months; subsequently, an evaluation of cogeneration efficiency as well as energy saving was made. The results are compared against plant performance achieved with conventional natural gas fueling. After analyzing the performance of the plant through a thermodynamic analysis, the study was complemented with CFD simulations of the combustor, to evaluate the combustion development and pollutant emissions formation, particularly of NOx, with the two fuels considered using Ansys-Fluent code, and a comparison was made.

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“…A number of research studies [23][24][25][26][27][28] have focused their attention on the use of different types of natural gas-derived fuels. One of the most studied investigations deals with the enrichment of NG with a fast-burning fuel, such as hydrogen, aiming at extending the lean operation limitations of NG fueled SI engines thanks to the improvements in terms of laminar burning velocities (i.e., hydrogen has a laminar burning velocity seven times higher than NG) [25].…”

Design and Thermo-Economic Analysis of an Integrated Solar Field Micro Gas Turbine Biomass Gasifier and Organic Rankine Cycle System

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