Advances in Direct Fuel Cell/Gas Turbine Power Plants

Abstract

This paper summarizes the recent progress in the development of hybrid power systems based on Direct FuelCell/Turbine® (DFC/T®). The DFC/T system is capable of achieving efficiencies well in excess of state-of-the-art gas turbine combined cycle power plants but in much smaller size plants. The advances include the execution of proof-of-concept tests of a fuel cell stack integrated with a microturbine. The DFC/T design concept has also been extended to include the existing gas turbine technologies as well as more advanced ones. This paper presents the results of successful sub-MW proof-of-concept testing, sub-MW field demonstration plans, and parametric analysis of multi-MW DFC/T power plant cycle.