Techno-economic evaluation and technology roadmap of the MWe-scale SOFC-PEMFC hybrid fuel cell system for clean power generation

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel hybrid fuel cell power generation system with high efficiency. The thermo-economic modeling of the MWe-scale systems using different fuels is conducted to evaluate the economic feasibility under the subsidy policy of Eastern China. This work aims to develop the technology roadmap for this kind of clean power system. It is found that the energy efficiency of the natural gas and biogas fed systems could reach up to 64% and 63.5% respectively, thus they are efficient and cost-optimal for the hybrid system while liquefied petroleum gas and water gas yield low efficiency and high electricity cost. Moreover, under the subsidy policy, the biogas-fed hybrid system is more suitable for a small-scale power system, while the natural gas-fed system is preferable for the large-scale case. The specific electricity cost of small-scale biogas hybrid fuel cell power plant is 0.365 CNY/kWh, lower than the present feed-in-tariff price 0.475–0.704 CNY/kWh of other biogas plants in China. Also, the cost of 0.345–0.347 CNY/kWh of large-scale natural gas-fed hybrid system is much lower than the on-grid electricity price 0.7655 CNY/kWh in Shanghai. These results reveal that the proposed hybrid fuel cell power system is efficient and economically feasible. The payback period and annual return on investment are 0.8–1.2 year and 11–12%, respectively.