Experimental analysis on the collaborative operation of fuel cell and adsorption chiller composite system under multi-operating conditions

Abstract

At present, researches on fuel cell-based combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) systems mostly adopt simulation. In order to study the coupling relationship of various components in the CCHP system under actual operation, an experimental platform for the fuel cell and adsorption chiller composite system is established, and performance experiments are conducted on the system under various operating conditions. The experimental results show good agreement with the simulation results, with a maximum error of only 3.02 % at rated power. However, due to the significant hysteresis of heat transfer in the fuel cell, cooling water temperature fluctuations are observed about 100 s after the electric power switch, which intensify with higher electric power. Next, by using a typical variation curve of fuel cell electric power as input, the dynamic performance of the system under low and high-power conditions is studied. The variation in electric power leads to fluctuations in the cooling and heating power of the chiller. During the entire dynamic variation period, the cooling power decreases by about 20.76 % when the heating power supplied to the chiller is halved, which is also consistent with the simulation results. Therefore, the study provides constructive suggestions for stationary fuel cell-based CCHP systems.