OPTIMIZATION OF SMALL SOFC PLANTS WITH FLEXIBLE POWER/HEAT RATIOS AND THEIR FUTURE APPLICATION

摘要

An energetic and economic analysis of a decentralized natural gas-fuelled SOFC-power plant in the range of 200 kW capacity is carried out. Plant efficiencies, power/heat ratios and changes in costs of electricity are determined for variation of cell operation parameters as well as for variation of the flowsheet. The results indicate that it is possible to develop different plant concepts covering a wide range of power/heat ratios between about 1 and 3. In all cases low costs of electricity can be reached by optimization. Especially plant concepts with internal reforming and cathode gas recycling offer broad application potentials. In the second part of this paper some aspects of todays energy market will be analysed in order to come up with recommendations for the developers to enable fuel cells to play an important part in future energy supply systems.