SOFC cogeneration system for building applications, part 1: Development of SOFC system-level model and the parametric study

A thermal and electrochemical model is developed for the simulation of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) cogeneration system in this study. The modeling algorithms of electrochemical and thermal models are described. Since the fuel cell stack itself is only a single component within the whole SOFC system, the modeling of the balance-of-plant (BOP) components is also performed to assess the system-level performance. Using the new model, a parametric analysis is carried out to investigate the effects of fuel flow rate, extent of methane gas pre-reforming, fuel utilization factor, recycling rate of cathode gas and cell voltage on the overall system performance. As a result of the parametric study, fuel flow rate, cell voltage, fuel utilization and recycling rate of cathode gas turned out to improve system power output. In addition, the internal reforming turned out to have advantage over external reforming in terms of system power supply.