Modeling and Performance Analysis of the Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems Limited: 1 MW Plant

Trasino, Francesco; Bozzolo, Michele; Magistri, Loredana; Massardo, Aristide F.

doi:10.1115/1.4000600

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Supersonic ejectors are used when there is a need to generate a high pressure difference: in the supersonic regime, the primary flow can entrain a high quantity of suction fluid because of the lower-pressure at the nozzle exit and high momentum transfer. Main energy applications are fuel cell recirculation systems [37], i.e., molten carbonate fuel cells [38,39] and solid oxide fuel cells [40,41], ejector metal topping power plants [42,43], ejector organic Rankine cycles [44] and ejector refrigeration systems (ERS), which are the topic of this review.…”

Section: Nozzle Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ejector refrigeration: A comprehensive review

Besagni

Mereu

Inzoli

2016

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

417

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a b s t r a c tThe increasing need for thermal comfort has led to a rapid increase in the use of cooling systems and, consequently, electricity demand for air-conditioning systems in buildings. Heat-driven ejector refrigeration systems appear to be a promising alternative to the traditional compressor-based refrigeration technologies for energy consumption reduction. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on ejector refrigeration systems and working fluids. It deeply analyzes ejector technology and behavior, refrigerant properties and their influence over ejector performance and all of the ejector refrigeration technologies, with a focus on past, present and future trends. The review is structured in four parts. In the first part, ejector technology is described. In the second part, a detailed description of the refrigerant properties and their influence over ejector performance is presented. In the third part, a review focused on the main jet refrigeration cycles is proposed, and the ejector refrigeration systems are reported and categorized. Finally, an overview over all ejector technologies, the relationship among the working fluids and the ejector performance, with a focus on past, present and future trends, is presented.

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Section: Nozzle Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ejector refrigeration: A comprehensive review

Besagni

Mereu

Inzoli

2016

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

417

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“…The impact of carbon capture and sequestration were also reported to be much lower for SOFC-GT than supercritical pulverized coal and IGCC [3,4], even outperforming natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) [4]. High part-load efficiencies for turndown ratios up to 90% have been shown for these hybrids [5][6][7], which with the fuel flexibility of both SOFCs and GTs [5,[8][9][10], make this hybrid a robust fit for the evolving power-grid which is employing increasing numbers of generators that depend upon intermittent energy sources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel utilization effects on system efficiency in solid oxide fuel cell gas turbine hybrid systems

et al. 2018

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A computational analysis was conducted to optimize the design of a solid oxide fuel cell-gas turbine hybrid power generator, focusing on the impact that fuel utilization within the fuel cell has on system efficiency and installed costs. This is the first ever design-study considering the effect of fuel utilization on performance, as well as on the optimum power split. This hybrid system attained high electric generation efficiencies (>70%) over a wide range of operating conditions (60% < fuel utilization < 90%) while the fuel cell stack size decreased in proportion to decreasing the fuel utilization. A one-dimensional fuel cell model was used to simulate the fuel cell while GateCycle® was used to simulate the performance of the associated recuperated turbine and various subsystems necessary for thermal management. For each test case, the size of the solid oxide fuel cell, gas turbine, and recuperator, as well as the fuel and air flow rates, hot-air bypass set point, and heat exchange effectiveness in the solid oxide fuel cell manifold were varied to obtain 550 MWe output. In addition, anode recycle, turbomachinery efficiency, and various thermal management options were tested. The maximum system efficiency (75.6%) was attained for the single-pass solid oxide fuel cell with highly efficient turbomachinery when the solid oxide fuel cell used 80% of the incoming fuel. Efficiency was essentially flat from 75% fuel utilization through 85% fuel utilization. Employing anode recycle starting at 65% resulted in roughly 1 percentage point efficiency decrease for each percent increase in fuel utilization. For minimized solid oxide fuel cell degradation, a near 50:50 power split case was studied resulting in 68.6% efficiency and the solid oxide fuel cell using 55% of the incoming fuel. Because of shifting half of the power generation to the gas turbine, the size of the fuel cell stack was reduced by 25% as compared to that at maximum efficiency (80% fuel utilization).

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“… The model was developed and validated considering the SOFC manufactured by Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems [22][23][24]. This choice was necessary for consistency with the installed hardware (mainly the size of the vessels).…”

Section: Real-time Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hardware-in-the-Loop Operations With an Emulator Rig for SOFC Hybrid Systems

Ferrari

Sorce

Massardo

2017

Volume 3: Coal, Biomass and Alternative Fuels; Cycle Innovations; Electric Power; Industrial and Cogeneration Applications; Org

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This paper shows the Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) technique developed for the complete emulation of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) based hybrid systems. This approach is based on the coupling of an emulator test rig with a real-time software for components which are not included in the plant. The experimental facility is composed of a T100 microturbine (100 kW electrical power size) modified for the connection to an SOFC emulator device. This component is composed of both anodic and cathodic vessels including also the anodic recirculation system which is carried out with a single stage ejector, driven by an air flow in the primary duct. However, no real stack material was installed in the plant. For this reason, a real-time dynamic software was developed in the Matlab-Simulink environment including all the SOFC system components (the fuel cell stack with the calculation of the electrochemical aspects considering also the real losses, the reformer, and a cathodic recirculation based on a blower, etc.). This tool was coupled with the real system utilizing a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) data exchange approach (the model receives flow data from the plant at the inlet duct of the cathodic vessel, while it is able to operate on the turbine changing its set-point of electrical load or turbine outlet temperature). So, the software is operated to control plant properties to generate the effect of a real SOFC in the rig. In stand-alone mode the turbine load is changed with the objective of matching the measured Turbine Outlet Temperature (TOT) value with the calculated one by the model. In grid-connected mode the software/hardware matching is obtained through a direct manipulation of the TOT set-point. This approach was essential to analyze the matching issues between the SOFC and the micro gas turbine devoting several tests on critical operations, such as start-up, shutdown and load changes. Special attention was focused on tests carried out to solve the control system issues for the entire real hybrid plant emulated with this HIL approach. Hence, the innovative control strategies were developed and successfully tested considering both the Proportional Integral Derivative and advanced approaches. Thanks to the experimental tests carried out with this HIL system, a comparison between different control strategies was performed including a statistic analysis on the results The positive performance obtainable with a Model Predictive Control based technique was shown and discussed. So, the HIL system presented in this paper was essential to perform the experimental tests successfully (for real hybrid system development) without the risks of destroying the stack in case of failures. Mainly surge (especially during transient operations, such as load changes) and other critical conditions (e.g. carbon deposition, high pressure difference between the fuel cell sides, high thermal gradients in the stack, excessive thermal stress in the SOFC system components, etc.) have to be carefully avoided in complete plants.

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Modeling and Performance Analysis of the Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems Limited: 1 MW Plant

Cited by 28 publications

References 5 publications

Ejector refrigeration: A comprehensive review

Ejector refrigeration: A comprehensive review

Fuel utilization effects on system efficiency in solid oxide fuel cell gas turbine hybrid systems

Hardware-in-the-Loop Operations With an Emulator Rig for SOFC Hybrid Systems

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