A Novel Design of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell-Based Combined Cooling, Heat and Power Residential System in the U.K.

This article details with the use of objective sizing techniques for a novel design of a residential solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) combined cooling, heating, and electrical power system for the U.K. market. The aim of the research is to determine the objective sizing of key parameters relating to the cooling, heating, and power supply and demand, namely the number of cells in the SOFC, the effectiveness of the heat exchangers, and the coefficient of performance of the absorption chillers. These parameters are determined taking into account the aspects of efficiency, economic, and environmental impacts through use of the entropy-weighting approach and gray relationship analysis. The combination of these two approaches will help designers maximize efficiency of energy utilization and minimize emissions and costs of the system being examined. It is envisaged that electrical demand would be met by the fuel cell (FC) stacks, while the most efficient use is made of heat that is generated by the FC through waste heat recovery to satisfy domestic hot water, freezers, space heating, and space cooling. The demand of the conventional electric freezers is innovatively designed to be fulfilled by heat exchangers and absorption chillers to further increase the efficiency of heat energy use. Due to the energy demand characteristics of the U.K. domestic sector, the proposed system structure, objective sizing values, and operation control strategies-supported by MATLAB/Simulink software-are suited to the residential energy demands of a single household.