Simulation model of a molten carbonate fuel cell–microturbine hybrid system

A Hybrid System based on High Temperature Fuel Cells coupled to a Microturbine allows a high efficiency, low environmental pollution and it may be exploited as a CHP System producing heat and electricity both Grid Connected and Stand Alone; the overall electrical efficiency could reach a very high value (up to 60%) and total efficiency could be over 70% including the contribution due to heat recovery. In the context of wide research activities of ENEA on High Temperature Fuel Cells and Hybrid Systems – that involve materials, system BoP and fuels – a very great effort has been devoted to design and build, in the ENEA Research Centre of “Casaccia”, an experimental Test-Rig based on a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells Emulator and a Microturbine, to evaluate components performance characteristics at different operating conditions. To obtain relevant and reliable data and to compare them to the future experimental test results, a careful numerical simulation analysis of an Hybrid System has been developed by the Authors and it is presented in this Article. The numerical models of the System components were implemented in IPSE Pro™; the performance characteristics have been derived by evaluating operational parameters at nominal and partial loads and, moreover, a sensitivity analysis – varying main working parameters – has been performed on steady state conditions. The simulations show in detail the behaviour of both the Hybrid System and the Subsystems varying the main parameters (output electrical power, inlet flow rates, working pressure, power density, etc.) including rotational speed configuration of Microturbine