Fuel cell electric vehicle as a power plant and SOFC as a natural gas reformer: An exergy analysis of different system designs. (1st July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fernandes, A.; Woudstra, T.; van Wijk, A.; Verhoef, L.; Aravind, P.V.
• Is Part Of: Applied energy. Volume 173(2016)
• Page Start: 13
• Page End: 28
• Publication Date: 2016-07-01
• Subjects: SOFC -- Reforming -- Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) -- Exergy -- Trigeneration; Power (Mechanics) -- Periodicals; Energy conservation -- Periodicals; Energy conversion -- Periodicals; 621.042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.03.107
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-2619

Abstract

Highlights: A novel concept of a trigeneration plant using fuel cell vehicles is presented. Energy and water production based on FCEVs studied. Internal reforming SOFCs are compared with catalytic reformers. Efficiency penalties with CCS are presented. Abstract: Delft University of Technology, under its "Green Village" programme, has an initiative to build a power plant (car parking lot) based on the fuel cells used in vehicles for motive power. It is a trigeneration system capable of producing electricity, heat, and hydrogen. It comprises three main zones: a hydrogen production zone, a parking zone, and a pump station zone. This study focuses mainly on the hydrogen production zone which assesses four different system designs in two different operation modes of the facility: Car as Power Plant (CaPP) mode, corresponding to the open period of the facility which uses fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) as energy and water producers while parked; and Pump mode, corresponding to the closed period which compresses the hydrogen and pumps to the vehicle's fuel tank. These system designs differ by the reforming technology: the existing catalytic reformer (CR) and a solid oxide fuel cell operating as reformer (SOFCR); and the option of integrating a carbon capture and storage (CCS). Results reveal that the SOFCR unit significantly reduces the exergy destruction resulting in an improvement of efficiency over 20% in SOFCR-based system designs compared to CR-based system designs in both operation modes. It also mitigates the reduction in system efficiency by integration of a CCS unit, achieving a value of 2% whereas, in CR-based systems, is 7–8%. The SOFCR-based system running in Pump mode achieves a trigeneration efficiency of 60%.