Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
Sustainability is one of the challenging issues in electricity production systems.Recently, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has been suggested for use in combined heat andpower (CHP) systems. This application is introduced as a promisingenvironmentally-friendly system according to the thermodynamic and electrochemical models.In this paper, an atmospheric SOFC/CHP cycle was analysed based on integrating exergyconcepts, energy and mass balance equations. In this regard, a zero-dimensional energy andmass balance model was developed in engineering equation solver (EES) software. Twodimensionless parameters (the exergetic performance coefficient (EPC) for investigatingthe whole cycle, and exergetic efficiency for investigating the exergy efficiency of themain component of this cycle) were applied. Results show that efficiencies of the systemhave been increased substantially. The electrical efficiency, total efficiency and EPC ofthis cycle were ~54%,~79% and~58% respectively.Moreover, the CO2emission is 19% lower than when compared with a conventional combined power cycle fed bynatural gas. In addition, a dynamic economic evaluation was performed to extract the mostsensitive parameters affecting the outputs: electricity sales price (ESP), equipmentpurchase cost and fuel cost. Furthermore, an electricity production cost of~125 $MW.h-1 wasattributed to our model, resulting in yet further cost reduction for widespreadapplications of this cycle.