Comparison and evaluation of mega watts proton exchange membrane fuel cell combined heat and power system under different waste heat recovery methods

Lixin Fan, Yang Liu, Xiaobing Luo, Zhengkai Tu and Siew Hwa Chan

Renewable Energy, 2023, vol. 210, issue C, 295-305

Abstract: The proportion of renewable energy has emerged in the global energy structure and a range of clean energy resources and technologies are required for deep decarbonization in the global energy system, especially low-carbon hydrogen. Motivated by the net zero goal, this work proposed two proton exchange membrane fuel cell combined heat and power (PEMFC-CHP) systems with liquid cooling and phase change heat pump (PCHP) cooling, respectively. It compared its adaptivity with that of liquid cooling in terms of the MW-class thermal demand in different cities in China to provide sufficient energy but at a lower cost. The optimal system and operating conditions for different cities are determined by energy, economic and environmental analyses. The results show that the total efficiency of the PEMFC-CHP system with PCHP cooling is significantly improved at the expense of electricity efficiency compared with conventional liquid cooling. The thermal efficiency has been improved from 48.66% to 53.90% with the expense of the drop of electricity efficiency of 1.96% at the current density of 1A·cm−2. It proves that liquid cooling is more suitable for places whose winter temperature is above zero for it saves cost. While PCHP cooling presents better adaptivity in colder zones (below zero) for it can sufficiently meet the high thermal demand. The PCHP cooling in the extremely cold regions can reduce the cost by 2.47 × 106 $/year.

Keywords: Proton exchange membrane fuel cell; Multi-stack; Combined heat and power; Economic and environmental evaluation; Heat recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123005049
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:210:y:2023:i:c:p:295-305

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.04.054

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().