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2015-ESC-0462
Fuel Cell based Hybrid Power Generation Strategies for Microgrid Applications
U. R. Prasanna
Kaushik Rajashekara
Member, IEEE
University of Texas at Dallas,
Richardson, TX-75080
prasanna.ur@utdallas.edu
Fellow, IEEE
University of Texas at Dallas,
Richardson, TX-75080
k.raja@utdallas.edu
I.
INTRODUCTION
Power Plant
Electricity
100
36
Fuel
Heat
Boiler
100
36 80
100 100
58 %
30 55
100
85 %
80
Cogeneration system
Electricity
Fuel
100
Cogeneration
System
30
Heat
55
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make use of the power available from the solar air turbine
power plant.
In the system shown in Fig. 6, whenever there is an
excess power available from the air turbine generator,
water is electrolyzed to produce hydrogen, and then
compressed and stored in a cylinder. When needed, the
stored hydrogen is fed to the anode of SOFC along with
the heated air to the cathode of SOFC. This hot air stream
is derived from the solar receiver and can also be used to
bring the SOFC to its required operating temperature for
initial startup of the SOFC system. Electrical output
obtained at the output of SOFC is conditioned and
combined with the turbine generator output and fed to the
microgrid. When sufficient solar power is not available,
it is possible to run the turbine generator directly from the
exhaust of the SOFC unit assuming sufficient hydrogen is
stored to run the SOFC unit. If the stored hydrogen is not
sufficient, the required hydrogen can be obtained by
reforming the natural gas to obtain the power from SOFC
and also to run the turbine from its exhaust. Compressed
high temperature air fed to the turbine either as hot air
from the solar receiver or as exhaust from SOFC unit can
be regulated by the valves as shown in Figure 6. During
daytime, when solar energy is available, energy from the
solar receiver needs to be utilized completely. During
cloudy times and at night, using the stored hydrogen or
from the reformate SOFC generates the electric power
and also provides the high temperature exhaust for
running the turbine. With this type of hybrid system, the
need for energy storage systems like batteries can be
eliminated [37-38].
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[6]
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VI.
http://www.rpi.edu/cfes/Workshop%20on%20Microgrid/C3%20R
oughan%20NGrid.pdf
Hybrid Fuel Cell Technology Overview, National Energy
Technology Lab, U. S. DOE, Pittsburg, PA, May 2001.
K. Rajashekara, Hybrid fuel-cell strategies for clean power
generation, IEEE Trans. Industry Applications, vol. 41, no. 3, pp.
682-689, May/June 2005.
J. C. Ho, K. J. Chua, and S. K. Chou, Performance study of a
microturbine system for cogeneration application, Renewable
Energy, vol. 29, pp. 1121-1133, 2004.
K. Rajashekhara, Power conversion and control strategies for
fuel cell vehicles, IEEE IECON 2003, 2865-2870.
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