Development of a micro-cogeneration laboratory and testing of a natural gas CHP unit based on PEM fuel cells

One of the first experimental campaign has been carried out on a CHP system based on polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEM), a promising candidate for distributed CHP thanks to low pollutant emissions and good efficiency, rapid startup and flexibility, although affected by a rather complex fuel processing section to provide the appropriate fuel to the PEM. This work presents the experimental analysis of a 20 kW prototype PEM CHP system complete of natural gas processor. The prototype is operated at LMC to characterize the processing section and the thermodynamic performances of the overall system. Despite its non-optimized layout, the unit has shown encouraging total efficiency (76%) and primary energy saving index (6%).