Performance analysis of an SOFC/HCCI engine hybrid system: System simulation and thermo-economic comparison

A novel SOFC hybrid system is proposed and evaluated relative to its thermodynamic efficiency and economy. The proposed system combines an SOFC stack with an HCCI-type internal combustion engine; the HCCI engine replaces a conventional combustor, simultaneously burns the anode off-gas, and produces additional power. To calculate the efficiency of the suggested system, each component and the overall system have been thermodynamically modeled. The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) has been calculated and economically assessed. For quantitative comparison and evaluation, a simple SOFC system and an SOFC/GT hybrid system are designed. Consequently, the proposed hybrid system shows the efficiency 59.5%, which is 7.8% and 0.9% higher efficiency than those of the SOFC simple system and the SOFC/GT hybrid system, respectively. And the system exhibits the LCOE $0.23/kWh, that is 12.9% and 7.6% reduced LCOE compared with the other two reference cases.