Publication

Fast RTO Applied to a Commercial SOFC System

Dominique Bonvin, Zacharie Wuillemin, Alejandro Gabriel Marchetti
2019
Conference Papers

Abstract

The experimental implementation of real-time optimization (RTO) to a commercial solid-oxide fuel-cell (SOFC) system is reported in this paper. The goal of RTO is to maximize the system efficiency at steady state subject to several operating constraints. The proposed RTO strategy is a constraint-adaptation approach, which consists in adding bias correction terms to the constraints in the optimization problem. These bias terms are estimated during operation using transient measurements in combination with a dynamic model. The scheme enforces plant optimality by continuously detecting and tracking the set of active constraints. This approach drives the fuel-cell system quickly to the desired power demand, while maximizing the efficiency and paying attention to constraint satisfaction. As such, this RTO scheme has the ability to both control and optimize fuel-cell systems. This experimental system reached about 65% efficiency. In addition, it was possible to deal with slow drifts such as degradation without compromising on optimality. (C) 2019, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/eae7e21a-b95a-4ae1-bc6d-b860d544d614

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Dominique Bonvin, Zacharie Wuillemin, Alejandro Gabriel Marchetti
2019
Conference Papers

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/eae7e21a-b95a-4ae1-bc6d-b860d544d614

About this result

Related concepts (20)

Solid oxide fuel cell

A solid oxide fuel cell (or SOFC) is an electrochemical conversion device that produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel. Fuel cells are characterized by their electrolyte material; the SOFC has a solid oxide or ceramic electrolyte. Advantages of this class of fuel cells include high combined heat and power efficiency, long-term stability, fuel flexibility, low emissions, and relatively low cost. The largest disadvantage is the high operating temperature which results in longer start-up times and mechanical and chemical compatibility issues.

Fuel cell

A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requiring a continuous source of fuel and oxygen (usually from air) to sustain the chemical reaction, whereas in a battery the chemical energy usually comes from substances that are already present in the battery. Fuel cells can produce electricity continuously for as long as fuel and oxygen are supplied.

Proton-exchange membrane fuel cell

Proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), also known as polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, are a type of fuel cell being developed mainly for transport applications, as well as for stationary fuel-cell applications and portable fuel-cell applications. Their distinguishing features include lower temperature/pressure ranges (50 to 100 °C) and a special proton-conducting polymer electrolyte membrane. PEMFCs generate electricity and operate on the opposite principle to PEM electrolysis, which consumes electricity.

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