SUMMARY
Given the increase in world population, the elevated “per capita” consumption of fossil fuels, and the apparent deleterious environmental impact of our current energy practices, development of more sustainable, reliable, and environmentally benign power producing mechanisms is paramount. Power producing technologies that increase efficiency and decrease harmful (CO2) emissions, while utilizing fossil and carbon based fuels, are the most likely candidates to spearhead the transformation to a more effective energy infrastructure; thus, hybridization with a well developed power producing mechanism, which is currently utilized within our current energy infrastructure, is an attractive solution. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs), are fuel flexible, high temperature, electrochemical energy conversion devices, that operative at relatively high theoretical efficiencies and are strong candidates for hybridization within gas turbine power plants. Though attractive, SOFCs have a number of sensitivities that pose design challenges with system integration. Transient events such as SOFC start-up and shut-down as well as system load changes are of both particular interest and are worthy of in depth investigation. The elevated cost of SOFCs also make them a difficult technology to investigate and study empirically, thus modeling and simulation based studies are ideal. This research project proposes the development of a robust one-dimensional, SOFC model that will be integrated into a pilot scale, gas turbine power plant test facility at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to simulate SOFC operation when coupled in a SOFC/Gas Turbine hybrid arrangement. This design tool will then be utilized to investigate the impact of system transients imposed by changes in SOFC operating parameters on internal SOFC and balance-of-plant thermal transport, with particular emphasis being placed phenomena associated with electrochemical system start-up.