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Hybrid Gas Turbine
Fuel Cell Systems
Professor Jack Brouwer, Ph.D.
Associate Director
National Fuel Cell Research Center
University of California
Irvine, CA 92697-3550
email: jb@nfcrc.uci.edu
http://www.nfcrc.uci.edu
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1.4-1 Introduction
With increasing energy demands, dwindling fossil energy resources, and
environmental concerns associated with criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases,
signifi cant attention in the gas turbine community has been focused on increasing
effi ciency and reducing emissions. A highly effi cient and low emitting concept that
has been considered for the future is the hybrid gas turbine high temperature fuel cell
concept.
Hybrid fuel cell technologies may enable the U.S. to meet its future energy
demands while enhancing energy effi ciency, reliability and security, and reducing
environmental impact. Hybrid systems are comprised of integrated gas turbines and
fuel cells with other technologies. A myriad of potential confi gurations exists with
hundreds of cycles proposed and investigated. In each case these hybrid cycles exhibit
a synergistic energy and environmental performance enhancement through novel
individual technology components, unique systems integration, advanced energy
conversion devices, innovative pollutant mitigation approaches, and/or increased fuel
fl exibility and applicability.
These types of hybrid systems have been developed and proposed for operation
on natural gas, coal, biomass and other fossil fuels. Both experimental and theoretical
analyses of such hybrid gas turbine fuel cell systems have indicated that such hybrid
systems can achieve very high fuel-to-end-use effi ciency and very low emissions.
The environmental and energy effi cient performance of these hybrid systems could
allow them to make major contributions to new and secure fossil-fueled energy
infrastructure and could assist in the provision of fuels, value added products, and
introduction of the hydrogen economy.
Integrated hybrid cycles exhibit synergies not present in typical combined cycles
with fuel-to-electricity effi ciencies higher than either the fuel cell or gas turbine alone
and costs for a given effi ciency that may become lower than either alone. Signifi cant
improvement of high temperature fuel cell technology robustness and cost is required
for the development of hybrid gas turbine fuel cell systems. The advancement of high
temperature fuel cell technology in the last decade has been signifi cant and expectations
are that it will become commercially viable in coming decades. Once high temperature
fuel cells become commercially viable, stand-alone fuel cell systems may compete
with gas turbine technology in the electricity production sector. However, this will
not occur without a natural evolution toward signifi cant use of hybrid systems that use
both gas turbine and fuel cell technology. This natural evolution will be driven by the
superior effi ciency and emissions performance of hybrid systems.
Economies, industry, citizens and the environment could all benefi t from the
advancement and deployment of gas turbine fuel cell hybrid systems due to high
energy effi ciency, and reduced environmental impact. No fossil-fuel based technology
can compete with the high effi ciency and environmental performance of gas turbine
fuel cell hybrid systems. In addition, the market applications for hybrid gas turbine
fuel cell technologies are myriad. They include the future potential application to
large central station power plants operated on a variety of fuel resources, distributed
generation support of traditionally energy intensive industries, local commercial
applications and various distributed generation scenarios. In addition, hybrid fuel
cell technologies can be used to support the auxiliary power and propulsion power
needs of aircraft, spacecraft, satellites, ships, and trains.
Although the potential for gas turbine fuel cell hybrid systems is signifi cant, the
front-end risk associated with developing this technology is considerable. Broad
investment in industry, at national laboratories, and in university research and
development is required to advance hybrid gas turbine fuel cell technology.
1.4-2 Background
Hybrid gas turbine fuel cell systems are comprised of two major components,
a high temperature fuel cell and a gas turbine engine. Since this handbook provides
suffi cient background information on gas turbine technology, background information
on fuel cell technology for use in integrated hybrid cycles is the focus of this section.
Brief background information regarding gas turbine technology for hybrid applications
is included. |
