Abstract
The continuous growth of non-programmable renewable energy resources penetration leads to unpredictable oscillations of the net load faced by dispatchable power plants, hindering the reliability and stability of the electric grid and requiring additional flexible resources. The EU project GRASSHOPPER focuses on MW-scale Fuel Cell Power Plant (FCPP) based on low temperature PEM technology. The project aims to setup and demonstrate a 100 kWel PEM FCPP, flexible in power output and designed to provide grid support. This work presents a dynamic simulation model of the FCPP, developed to simulate plant flexible operation and identify the best management strategy, aiming at optimizing the efficiency while reducing the degradation rate. Cold start up simulations, according to a warm-up procedure limiting stack degradation, result in a time to operation equal to 26 minutes. A sensitivity analysis is performed to determine which parameters mostly influence the warm-up duration, showing that it is possible to reduce start-up time substantially (e.g. down to 3 minutes with component preheating). On the other hand, simulations at variable load along the entire range of operation (20-100 kWel), according to grid balancing requirements, show that the plant is able to ramp up and down between the minimum to the maximum load in about 40 seconds.
Highlights
Power generation has experienced in the last years a continuous growth of renewable energy sources (RES) penetration, as required to meet the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets set by most industrialized countries [1]
New installations have been mainly based on non-programmable resources whose discontinuous and uncertain generation profile leads to unpredictable oscillations of the net load faced by the other dispatchable power plants, hindering the reliability and stability of the electric grid
The EU project GRASSHOPPER [1] investigates the use of MW-scale Fuel Cell (FC) power plants based on low temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) technology for the provision of balancing services to the electric grid
Summary
Power generation has experienced in the last years a continuous growth of renewable energy sources (RES) penetration, as required to meet the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets set by most industrialized countries [1]. Additional flexible resources are necessary in the power system, able to rapidly face the unbalances In this framework, the EU project GRASSHOPPER [1] investigates the use of MW-scale Fuel Cell (FC) power plants based on low temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) technology for the provision of balancing services to the electric grid. GRASSHOPPER project aims at demonstrating the dynamic operation capability, realizing the next-generation modular FC Power Plant (FCPP) unit targeting stationary application in the MW scale grid stabilization. The stack operating temperature, relevant for degradation and efficiency, is controlled by the flow rate of coolant, a glycol-water mixture flowing through a dedicated loop. The simultaneous control of backpressure, stack temperature, air and hydrogen ratio to stoichiometry and relative humidity will allow to optimize the system performance and limit FC stack degradation. Component models are combined together to build the entire system model and PI-type controllers are implemented for the control of system operation
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