Performance analysis of the SOFC-MGT hybrid system with gasified biomass fuel

Abstract Analysis of electricity generation efficiency of the biomass SOFC–MGT hybrid system has been made for several cases of different composition of fuel relevant to typical air-, oxygen- and steam-blown biomass gasification processes. Reference case for comparison is the one where pure methane is used as fuel. In the analysis, multi-stage model for internal reforming SOFC module developed previously has been used with some modification. It is found that efficiency achieved for all the three cases of different types for biomass fuel is reasonably high and so that the biomass SOFC–MGT hybrid system is promising. However, in all the three cases, efficiency is lower than the counterpart of pure methane case, both in the SOFC module and in the hybrid system. Among the biomass fuel cases, efficiency is found to be highest with steam-blown biomass fuel both for the SOFC module and for the hybrid system. The lowest efficiency is found in the case of air-blown fuel. In addition, effects of higher steam content in the biomass fuel and variety in composition of biomass fuel for each gasifying agent are also studied.