This study aims to analyse the influence of steam injection on the performance of hybrid systems combining a solid oxide fuel cell and a gas turbine. The steam is generated by recovering heat from the exhaust gas. Two system configurations, with diffe...
This study aims to analyse the influence of steam injection on the performance of hybrid systems combining a solid oxide fuel cell and a gas turbine. The steam is generated by recovering heat from the exhaust gas. Two system configurations, with difference being the operating pressure of the SOFC, are examined and effects of steam injection on performances of the two systems are compared. Two representative gas turbine pressure ratios are simulated and a wide range of both the fuel cell temperature and the turbine inlet temperature is examined. Without steam injection, the pressurized system generally exhibits better system efficiency than the ambient pressure system. Steam injection increases system power capacity for all design cases. However, its effect on system efficiency varies much depending on design conditions. The pressurized system hardly takes advantage of the steam injection in terms of the system efficiency. On the other hand, steam injection contributes to the efficiency improvement of the ambient pressure system in some design conditions. A higher pressure ratio provides a better chance of efficiency increase due to steam injection.