Modelling and Performance Evaluation of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell for Building Integrated Co‐ and Polygeneration

Abstract

Models of fuel cell based combined heat and power systems, used in building energy performance simulation codes, are often based on simple black or grey box models. To model a specific device, input data from experiments are often required for calibration. This paper presents an approach for the theoretical derivation of such data. A generic solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system model is described that is specifically developed for the evaluation of building integrated co‐ or polygeneration. First, a detailed computational cell model is developed for a planar SOFC and validated with available numerical and experimental data for intermediate and high temperature SOFCs with internal reforming (IT‐DIR and HT‐DIR). Results of sensitivity analyses on fuel utilisation and air excess ratio are given. Second, the cell model is extended to the stack model, considering stack pressure losses and the radiative heat transfer effect from the stack to the air flow. Third, two system designs based on the IT‐DIR and HT‐DIR SOFCs are modelled. Electric and CHP efficiencies are given for the two systems, as well as performance characteristics, to be used in simulations of building integrated co‐ and polygeneration systems.

Analysis of Biomass-fired Boilers in a Polygeneration System for a Hospital

“…Polygeneration and energy integration are promising tools for achieving better efficiency in the use of natural resources and, in most cases, also reducing the environmental impacts generated [2]. Examples of the application of polygeneration systems include the commercial [7][8][9], domestic [10][11], and industry [12][13] sectors Some consumption units, such as hospitals, exhibit high energy consumption and require continuous and simultaneous electric and thermal energy [14][15][16]. Therefore, hospitals are excellent units with potential for deploying polygeneration systems, as their comfort conditions and electricity, hot water, heating and air conditioning demands must be continuously met.…”

Experimental Analysis for Thermal Performance of Heat Distribution System in hot BoP of 2 kW‐class SOFC

“…They also analyzed the amount of power generation and the increase in temperature of the preheated air through the connected operation using a stack [11]. Kazempoor et al analyzed the modeling of the SOFC stack and system performance through simulation, and numerically assessed the performance of the cogeneration system for buildings connected to the SOFC [12]. Recently, many insightful studies on the design and development of new heat exchangers have been conducted to reduce the flow non-uniformity and heat dissipation effect generated during high-temperature heat transfer [13].…”

The effect of coupled mass transport and internal reforming on modeling of solid oxide fuel cells part I: Channel-level model development and steady-state comparison

“…Over the past years there have been numerous modeling efforts of dynamic SOFCs with system-level simulations in mind [4,2,5,12,20,25,39,48,49,50,26], including both lumped and spatially resolved models. Typically, these models include numerous simplifications of the physical processes occurring in the cell such as internal reforming, mass transport, and electrochemical kinetics.…”