Investigation of the prospect of energy self-sufficiency and technical performance of an integrated PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell), dairy farm and biogas plant system

Tingting Guan, Per Alvfors and Göran Lindbergh

Applied Energy, 2014, vol. 130, issue C, 685-691

Abstract: A PEMFC fuelled with hydrogen is known for its high efficiency and low local emissions. However, the generation of hydrogen is always a controversial issue for the application of the PEMFC due to the use of fossil fuel and the possible carbon dioxide emissions. Presently, the PEMFC-CHP fed with renewable fuels, such as biogas, appears to be the most attractive energy converter–fuel combination. In this paper, an integrated PEMFC-CHP, a dairy farm and a biogas plant are studied. A PEMFC-CHP fed with reformate gas from the biogas plant generates electricity and heat to a dairy farm and a biogas plant, while the dairy farm delivers wet manure to the biogas plant as the feedstock for biogas production. This integrated system has been modelled for steady-state conditions by using Aspen Plus®. The results indicate that the wet manure production of a dairy farm with 300 milked cows can support a biogas plant to give 1280MWh of biogas annually. Based on the biogas production, a PEMFC-CHP with a stack having an electrical efficiency of 40% generates 360MWh electricity and 680MWh heat per year, which is enough to cover the energy demand of the whole system while the total efficiency of the PEMFC-CHP system is 82%. The integrated PEMFC-CHP, dairy farm and biogas plant could make the dairy farm and the biogas plant self-sufficient in a sustainable way provided the PEMFC-CHP has the electrical efficiency stated above. The effect of the methane conversion rate and the biogas composition on the system performance is discussed. Moreover, compared with the coal-fired CHP plant, the potentially avoided fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of this self-sufficient system are also calculated.

Keywords: PEMFC-CHP; Biogas; Biogas plant; Dairy farm; Integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.04.043

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