Highly efficient electricity generation through a hybrid molten carbonate fuel cell-closed loop gas turbine plant

Fuel cells have been revealed to be very attractive power generation system s, promising highly efficient electricity generation and very low environme ntal impact. With the high-temperature fuel cells still in embryonic infanc y, the very high energetic efficiency can be further increased by their int egration into hybrid cycles. While a wide variety of potential bottoming te chnologies for the exploitation of the high temperature exhaust gases waste heat is available, a lot of research effort is needed to determine the opt imal integration of well established technologies with these very novel con version devices. The aim of this work is to provide a contribution to selec ting promising plants for the electricity generation of the future, and it constitutes an attempt to optimize the working parameters and estimation of the performances. A basic plant configuration and its main working parameters have been deter mined, including the plant performance, the stream thermodynamic and chemic al properties and the component temperatures. A modified plant configuratio n has been found, allowing the optimal exploitation of the waste heat strea ms for internal heat regeneration. Different bottoming cycles have been con sidered, and a parametric analysis has been performed with the aim of perfo rmance comparisons. The most promising solution has been determined, and it s performance evaluated. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.