Thermo-economic analysis of absorption air cooling system for pressurized solid oxide fuel cell/gas turbine cycle

Using hybrid pressurized solid oxide fuel cell (PSOFC)/gas turbine (GT) power generation system with biomass gasification, increases total energy efficiency and make considerable reduction with fossil fuel quantitative consumption. Also, cooling the inlet air by absorption chillers will contribute to maximization of the efficiency of combined cycle’s power plants. In this research, by increasing efficiency approaches, environmental and economic aspects considered on a novel considerable hybrid cycle capacity are determined with 1.7 MW, which used biomass fuel as a part of system fuel requirement for small scale industrial factory end users. The suggested PSOFC/GT combined system and absorption inlet air cooling system has been modeled with cycle-tempo software, calculated total cycle energy, and mass balance. In addition, the pilot and the case have been designed for hot and humid weather condition in the austral city of Ahwaz in Iran. The heat required to supply the absorption system is supplied by the exhaust gas from HRSG. Generation of more HP steam and minimization of natural gas consumption are among the other advantages of such systems. The cycle assessment indicates that appending an absorption inlet air cooling system will result in maximization of the combined cycle efficiency (on average by 1.5%) and outlet power (on average by 8.5%) during the 6 months within hot seasons of the year. Having performed the economic analysis, the payback period was to equal 8.1 year and IRR deduced to be 15.6%.