Fuel Cell Temperature Control With a Precombustor in SOFC Gas Turbine Hybrids During Load Changes

The use of high temperature fuel cells, such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), for power generation is considered a very efficient and clean solution for conservation of energy resources. When the SOFC is coupled with a gas turbine, the global system efficiency can go beyond 70% on natural gas lower heating value (LHV). However, durability of the ceramic material and system operability can be significantly penalized by thermal stresses due to temperature fluctuations and noneven temperature distributions. Thermal management of the cell during load following is therefore essential. The purpose of this work is to develop and test a precombustor model for real-time applications in hardware-based simulations, and to implement a control strategy to keep constant cathode inlet temperature during different operative conditions. The real-time model of the precombustor was incorporated into the existing SOFC model and tested in a hybrid system facility, where a physical gas turbine and hardware components were coupled with a cyber-physical fuel cell for flexible, accurate, and cost-reduced simulations. The control of the fuel flow to the precombustor was proven to be effective in maintaining a constant cathode inlet temperature during a step change in fuel cell load. With a 20 A load variation, the maximum temperature deviation from the nominal value was below 0.3% (3 K). Temperature gradients along the cell were maintained below 10 K/cm. An efficiency analysis was performed in order to evaluate the impact of the precombustor on the overall system efficiency.