Dynamics and Control of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems for Meeting Transient Demand in Distributed Generation Applications

随着发电日益分散的特点，需要动态调度电厂。这种满足需求瞬变的能力是发展安全、有弹性和独立的电力网络的关键，以应对自然或人为的中断。此外，希望系统能够在部分负载下运行，而不会在效率或性能上造成较大损失。例如，可以进行部分负载操作，以向地理上偏远的一小群用户提供电力，或者弥补来自其他形式的发电的可变功率输出。固体氧化物燃料电池为分布式发电提供了高效率、超低污染物排放、可扩展性和灵活性。然而，尽管燃料电池能够跟踪快速的功率变化，但由于重要的技术挑战，包括燃料和氧化剂的动态预热和处理，以及无法控制燃料电池温度分布的动态变化，燃料电池没有以这种方式使用。目前的项目旨在通过燃料电池系统设计和动态运行控制方面的创新来克服这些限制，以提高可靠性水平并降低成本。该项目包括燃料电池系统设计、系统级动态模拟和新的控制技术，以使燃料电池系统成为关键的、如果不是首选的动态调度技术。该项目旨在更好地了解高温燃料电池系统快速动态运行所面临的问题，并开发解决方案。使用先进的控制技术，并在整体系统设计中利用未得到充分利用的灵活性，可以在动态操作和热管理方面产生重大改进。将对不同的燃料电池结构(同流、逆流和横流)进行研究和评估。将完成三个主要任务：(I)开发用于动态控制器设计计算的具有显著空间分辨率的高保真模型，(Ii)评估分离解耦控制回路的系统设计，识别新的驱动和传感机制，并开发各种控制策略，以及(Iii)应用面向性能的反卷绕技术，使为关键子系统设计的控制器能够在不影响性能的情况下承受偶尔的饱和。将使用退化和生命周期分析来评估这些方法的有效性。该项目将产生可靠的动态模型和系统方法来设计和控制燃料电池系统，以实现更高、更可靠的可再生能源使用。

Dynamically dispatched power plants are required for the increasingly distributed nature of power generation. This ability to meet demand transients is key to developing safe, resilient and independent power networks, in response to natural or man-made disruptions. Furthermore, it is desirable for systems to be able to run at partial load without large losses in efficiency or performance. Partial load operation may occur, for example, to provide power to a small group of geographically remote users, or to make up for the variable power output from other forms of generation. Solid oxide fuel cells offer high efficiency, ultra-low pollutant emissions, and scalability and flexibility for distributed generation. However, while fuel cells are capable of tracking fast power variations, they are not used in this fashion due to important technical challenges, including dynamic preheating and processing of the fuel and oxidant, and the inability to control the fuel cell temperature profile dynamics. The current project seeks to overcome these limitations with innovations in fuel cell system design and control for dynamic operation, toward enhanced levels of reliability as well as reduced costs. This project includes fuel cell system designs, system level dynamic simulations, and new control techniques to enable fuel cell systems to become a key, if not the preferred, dynamically dispatched technology. This project aims at developing a better understanding of the issues faced in, and developing solutions for, fast dynamic operation of high temperature fuel cell systems. Using advanced control techniques, and exploiting under-used flexibilities in the overall system design, could produce significant improvements in dynamic operation and thermal management. Different fuel cell configurations (co-flow, counter flow and cross flow) will be studied and evaluated. Three major tasks will be accomplished: (i) development of high fidelity models with significant spatial resolution for dynamic controller design computations, (ii) evaluation of system designs for separating decoupled control loops, identifying new mechanisms for actuation and sensing, and developing a variety of control strategies, and (iii) application of performance oriented anti-windup techniques to enable controllers designed for key subsystems to withstand occasional saturation without much performance compromise. Degradation and life-cycle analysis will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the approaches. Project will produce reliable dynamic models and a systematic approach to design and control fuel cell systems to enable higher, and reliable, renewable power use.