LONG TERM PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION OF A HIGH TEMPERATURE PEM FUEL CELL BASED COGENERATION SYSTEM

In the present study, multi-objective optimization method has been employed to optimize the long term performance of an HT-PEM fuel cell based cogeneration system. In order to have a proper estimation of the long term performance of the plant, the degradation within the fuel cell stack and the fuel processor, has been taken into account. Steam to carbon ratio, auxiliary to process fuel ratio, anodic stoichiometric ratio and fuel partialization factor are considered as the design parameters. In order to investigate the feasibility of addressing an intermittent demand, thermal generation of the plant has been considered as one of the objectives while the electrical efficiency, as an indicator of the system's performance, is considered as the second one. Taking into account the degradation trends, the optimization procedure is carried out in certain time steps, therefore a series of Pareto fronts are obtained and the system design parameters are adaptively optimized.