A Study on solid oxide fuel cell hybrid system combined with an existing heavy-duty gas turbine to promote the use of hydrogen

Abstract

As an electric power generation system for the transition period till a green hydrogen society is established, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) hybrid system combined with an existing medium-capacity heavy-duty gas turbine (GT) is proposed. The combined system promotes hydrogen consumption with the use of SOFC and load following with the use of GT. A calculation method for a large-scale SOFC is presented, and is validated by comparing the calculated values with the measured results of the power density of SOFC. An increase in the output power of the SOFC is obtained when the SOFC operates at the compressor discharge pressure in a medium-capacity GT system. For the same fuel mass flow rate condition, the output power of this system increases by 11% compared to the existing GT, and 4% compared to the hydrogen co-firing GT. This shows the effectiveness of the proposed SOFC hybrid system.